Duran and Kiyohime's Omake Theater
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets! A collection of random drabbles and gags with chibi versions of the Childs livening up their masters' lives. Some ShizNat lurking in the background.
1. That's Not What I Think of as Necking

_A/N: Those of you who read my Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha fics know_ _that at the end of each fic, I include a little omake extra segment called "Vivio's Magical Omake Theater!" When I started writing _HiME_ fics, I thought I'd do the same thing...only I ran into a few problems._

_1. These drabbles aren't set in the same AU that the actual fics are, which means that you, the readers, might find them a little jarring._

_2. I've already written a good seven of them and I'm still wrestling madly on only the second actual fic._

_So, you get to suffer through my sense of humor in this collection of vignettes, drabbles, and CHILD-ish crack-fics._

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

It was a lazy weekday afternoon. Kiyohime was snuggled down into her fluffy purple cushion, bathed in a warm sunbeam. It was a perfect day for a happy hydra to take a nice nap.

_Bzzzzzzz_.

Except for the annoying fly that insisted on buzzing around her. The sound was irritating enough, but when it dipped down to where it brushed against the back of her third head, she'd had enough. That head shot up, snapping at the fly but just missing. The insect seemed possessed by an evil spirit; rather than being chased off by the near-miss, it continued to circle around the hydra. Kiyohime's other heads rose up, lunging and snapping, but the fly went on zipping in and out, dodging the serpentine jaws.

Finally, though, the bug's luck ran out and, in running from Kiyohime's first head, dodged around her second neck and right into the waiting mouth of the fifth head, which closed on it with a satisfying gulp and swallow. Having won that victory, she prepared to settle down to her nap.

Only to discover a slight problem...

- - - - -

Natsuki Kuga's keys rattled as she pulled them out of the lock and called, "I'm home!" That was kind of pointless, since Shizuru wouldn't be back from classes for over an hour, but it felt good to be able to say it if only to the pets.

She was surprised, then, when Duran set to barking. It wasn't his "angry" bark, but not his "hello" bark, either. "Worried" was how she thought she'd describe it. Concerned, she yanked off her boots and ran through the foyer to the living room to see what had gotten him upset.

"Hey, boy, what's wrong--oh." He was standing next to Kiyohime's pillow, where the hydra was looking plaintively up at her and whimpering.

"You owe me for this, Kiyohime," Natsuki said as she knelt down to help. "Can you imagine what Shizuru would say if she found out you'd gotten your necks tied in a knot?"


	2. On Target

_A/N: A quickie this week..._

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"All right, Duran, go get it!"

Natsuki threw the ball as high and hard as she could, glad that the park was nice and big so she wouldn't accidentally fling it into the woods.

Suddenly, she heard the ratcheting sounds of Duran's magazine loaders feeding two cartridges into the breech-loading rifles.

"No, wait!" she cried, but it was too late. The gunshots echoed across the park and the shells hit home with perfect accuracy, sending a shower of shredded rubber bits raining down. Duran woofed happily, wagging his tail.

"Duran, we were playing 'fetch,' not skeet shooting!"


	3. Stay Frosty

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Shizuru had just stepped into the foyer, already planning how she could sneak Natsuki's birthday presents upstairs and hide them, when she suddenly heard Natsuki's voice raised in a shout of command.

"Duran! Load Silver Cartridge! Fire!"

Fear shot like a knife through Shizuru's heart. Why was Natsuki ordering Duran to launch his special ice-shell attack? Had someone broken in--a Searrs Foundation agent, some revenge-minded survivor of the First District, or even a common burglar? She was through the foyer and kitchen before a coherent thought could actually form in her mind, a flick of her hand as she passed the knife rack snatching up a long blade meant for carving meat but very suitable for anyone who dared to think that they could hurt Natsuki. Following the direction where she'd heard Natsuki's voice, she ran through the dining room and out the French doors onto the patio.

"Natsuki!"

"Oh, hey, Shizuru."

Natsuki was not apparently in trouble. Quite the opposite, she was reclining on a lounge chair, basking in the sunlight. She was scratching Duran behind the ears with one hand, his tail thumping on the deck, while her other hand held a frosty glass of cola. It was a testament to the power of the relief that swept through Shizuru that she did not stop to think about how good Natsuki looked in her skimpy black bikini for at least fifteen seconds.

"Um, Shizuru," Natsuki added, looking at her over the top of her sunglasses, "why are you holding a kitchen knife?"

"I...when I came through the door, I heard you order Duran to shoot. I thought you were in trouble."

"What? Oh, no, that was just--" She held up her frost-rimed glass. "We're out of ice cubes." She blushed a little. "Sorry that I worried you."

Shizuru smiled evilly at her.

"_Ara_, I think that a proper punishment can be arranged. Particularly as I can see that Natsuki has forgotten to put on sunblock."

"What? H-hey, Shizuru, wait a minute--"

"We can't risk the health of Natsuki's lovely skin!"

"Hold it, I can take off my own--"

Duran got up and padded inside. It was nice to lie in the warm sun, but experience had told him that he'd get a better nap if he was well away from the squealing.


	4. Talk About Breeds Makes Her Cross

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

The sandy-haired woman looked so forlorn as she poked through the shelves of merchandise that the clerk behind the desk at Animal Hut had to come over and offer assistance.

"Excuse me, miss, but is there anything I can help you with?"

Shizuru nodded.

"My girlfriend really loves her dog, so I thought it would be nice to get her a T-shirt." She gestured to the rack, which held the usual messages of _I love my German Shepherd, I love my Golden Retriever_, and so on. "But I can't find her dog's picture on any of these."

"Well, our computer does have over 400 breeds. We can look it up and have the shirt printed for you; then you could pick it up when it's ready or have it delivered at a slight charge."

"That sounds like a good idea."

"So what type of dog does your girlfriend have?"

"Well, he's a crossbreed."

"Don't worry. Many of the more popular crosses are being recognized as breeds in their own right, and if not we can go with a 'mutt' shirt and customize it with the proper silhouette. What sort of cross is he?"

Shizuru pursed her lips thoughtfully.

"I'm not exactly sure, but I think that he's half wolf, and half field artillery."


	5. She Can Dish It Out

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"Na-tsu-ki, I'm waaaaaiting!" Shizuru's singsong voice came from the next room.

"Be there in a sec!"

Natsuki scooped out kibble into Duran's dish, then set it on the floor; he dug in with gusto.

"But it's so lonely without my Natsuki..."

Natsuki ran the can of wet food through the can opener, then began spooning it out for Kiyohime.

"You could always help out, Shizuru. Or at least convince your pet that she doesn't need a _separate_ dish for _each head_."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

_A/N: Another very short one...but hey, at least I'm getting chapters of "Come, Natsuki, The Game is Afoot" out on a weekly basis, right?_


	6. Know Where To Shop

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"So what are you going to get Akane for her birthday, Kazuya?" Tate asked as they strolled to their next class.

"Well, I'm taking her out for dinner, and I'm getting her flowers, but I wanted to get her something just as a regular gift, too, in addition to the romantic stuff. Trouble is, I'm not quite sure what would be good."

"She likes animals, doesn't she? You could pick her up something from Animal Hut. No matter what her favorite critter is, they're sure to have something for it."

"Sounds good. But what if Akane's favorite animal is something weird? Do they really have everything?"

Tate pointed up ahead to where ex-Kaichou, now university student Shizuru Fujino was crossing the park. She wore a T-shirt emblazoned with her pet's silhouette and the phrase, "I (heart) my Six-Headed Hydra."

"Yep. Everything."


	7. Take It With a Grain of Salt

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Beaches, Natsuki decided, had obviously been put on earth by God specifically to torment her. It wasn't the water, at least not by itself--she loved swimming and could spend hours at the pool. But there seemed to be something about the combination of surf and sand, wind and wave, that combined to invite disaster.

She'd been lounging under the beach umbrella reading, when there was a sudden rumbling in the sand next to her and six snakelike heads popped up (Kiyohime had been playing "burrow"). Someone passing by too near usually rated a head or two, but six inevitably meant the return of her mistress, so Natsuki looked up. Sure enough, Shizuru was back from the ice-cream stand, a swirled cone in each hand and looking stunning in her lavender one-piece.

"Here you are, Natsuki," Shizuru said, and bent over to hand Natsuki her ice cream. Enjoying the treat and the view, Natsuki thought that maybe, for once, she'd have a good day at the beach.

Then Duran dashed up and shook, spraying salt water everywhere.

"_Kannin na_, Natsuki," Shizuru apologized. "We passed a group of kids playing on the way to the ice-cream stand and Duran chased their Frisbee into the ocean."

Natsuki groaned.

"Duran, what are you doing? You know what salt water can do to you."

"Is it really that bad?" Shizuru asked, worried.

"I'm gonna be polishing rust off him for hours," Natsuki wailed. "Damn it, I _hate_ the beach!"


	8. Heading for the Highway

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets!)_

Natsuki spun the motorcycle through the sharp curve without slackening speed, leaning her body and the bike over so that her knee nearly scraped the ground. It was still such a rush to be able to open up her Ducati on the coast road and feel what it was capable of. The tight grip around her waist increased, though, letting her know that her passenger didn't appreciate it as much as she did.

"Hey, don't worry; even your mistress got used to it," Natsuki shouted. Kiyohime probably didn't hear her over the rush of air and the engine noise, even if she could understand. While the hydra was securely strapped to the Ducati's rear seat by a belt going around her body, Kiyohime apparently didn't consider that secure _enough_ and had five of her necks wrapped around Natsuki's waist. Only the fourth head seemed to be more concerned with feeling the wind in its scales. But, that's what happened when it was time for her routine checkup at the vet's and Shizuru was too busy to take her.

The sound of a siren and flashing lights in the mirror punctured Natsuki's good mood as surely as a nail in her tire would. She slowed up and pulled over, and the cop followed suit. Natsuki sighed, cut the engine, and flipped up her visor.

"License and registration, miss," the policeman asked when he came over. Natsuki handed him the required paperwork.

"What is it, Officer? I'd have sworn I wasn't speeding."

He shook his head.

"You weren't, miss. It's your passenger, there."

Kiyohime's second head gave the policeman a curious hiss.

"Oh? What's wrong?" Natsuki echoed.

"Well, miss, that's going to be one, two, three...six counts of riding a motorcycle without a helmet."


	9. Teach a Christmas Trick

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets!)_

Snow drifted down through the air in large, lazy flakes. Natsuki shivered inside her leather jacket; she'd have to put the liner in when she got back home if she intended to keep wearing it through the season. She wasn't sure what she hated more, the cold of winter or the seventeen layers of clothing it took to keep that cold away.

Shizuru, of course, didn't seem to mind. Her white cashmere coat had somehow avoided getting a single spot of mud or dirt on it, and looked very elegant with her black leather boots and gloves and the violet scarf wrapped around her neck.

"So, you said you taught Duran a new trick?" Natsuki asked.

"Well, Duran and Kiyohime both."

"What was it?"

Shizuru smiled.

"To sit up and beg!"

"Wait, what?" Natsuki snapped. "Geez, that's so annoying when Duran does that at meals. I've been trying to get him to knock it off for nearly a year now—and you go and teach him to do it on purpose? _Both_ of them?"

"Natsuki is in a bad mood," Shizuru observed. "Is the cold making her crabby?"

"No! Well—that is—I—" Partly it was because Shizuru was right, darn her, but more it was because the older girl's face had changed, the smile getting _just_ a bit more plastic, _just_ a bit more fake. Most people wouldn't have noticed, but Natsuki realized she'd hurt her girlfriend, then that was how she reacted when genuinely stung, while the pout and puppy-dog eyes only came out when she was pretending.

"_Kannin na_. I thought it would be a nice surprise for Christmas."

_Ah, hell, now what?_ Natsuki thought as they rounded a corner...and came face-to-face with a surprise.

Duran and Kiyohime were sitting on the sidewalk, wearing Santa caps on all seven of their collective heads. Each of the hydra's six mouths was holding a handbell, and she was busily ringing out a Christmas carol. Duran sat up in the classic dog's "begging" posture, and a copper urn three-quarters full of coins and bills was between them on a stand. The steel wolf looked at Natsuki and woofed happily; she looked from him to Shizuru.

"They've raised over three hundred thousand yen for the homeless shelter," Shizuru said.

Natsuki dug out her wallet and tossed in a couple of bills.

"Make it three hundred and ten." She then grabbed Shizuru by the shoulders and planted a kiss square on her girlfriend's lips, not caring that they were surrounded by shoppers.

"_Ara, ara_; I think I just got my Christmas present early."

Natsuki grinned.

"Not 'til we get home, you haven't."

Sometimes winter wasn't so bad, she decided—when you had the right person to spend it with.


	10. Promise

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

_A/N: This one is a little longer than usual. It was supposed to just be a cute little piece where Shizuru pulls Natsuki off to celebrate the end of her work with...well, you'll see that part. But Natsuki just wouldn't leave it at that..._

~X X X~

Natsuki clicked the "Save" icon with dramatic force, stabbing her finger down on the laptop's mouse button with the kind of motion that brought to mind executions by impalement.

"There!" she crowed. "It's done!" Wasting no time, she immediately e-mailed the finished document to Mr. Sakomizu. Natsuki's vacation had been pretty well destroyed by all the makeup classes she'd had to take so she wouldn't have to repeat first-year, but getting this paper off her back was the light at the end of the tunnel. All that was left were the exams, and those would be easy enough; she knew the material cold by now. She pumped her fist in the air as she got up, even letting out a little whoop.

"_Ara_, Natsuki seems very enthused."

"Meep!" Natsuki went beet red as she realized that Shizuru had seen her cavorting.

"I take it that you've finished your paper?"

"Uh-huh. Finished, fact-checked, proofed, and submitted."

"Excellent!" Shizuru grabbed her arm. "Let's go."

"Huh? What? Go where?"

Shizuru being Shizuru, though, answers were not forthcoming. Natsuki found herself bundled into her shoes and jacket, all but dragged out the door, and taken across campus down to the beach. It was, ironically, the same stretch of shore where Mai had arrived at Fuuka nearly a year ago. Although they hadn't known it at the time, that had been the opening bell for the events that culminated in the HiME Festival. So much had changed for everyone involved, Natsuki among those who had gone through the most. The passion that had driven her all her life, her desire to seek revenge for her mother's killers, was through. She'd found the truth of those events at last, and nearly everyone responsible was dead now, if not by her own hand.

On a smaller scale, but maybe more important in the long run, she'd begun to open up around others, to the point that she was starting to add people to her life that she'd genuinely call friend, like Mikoto and Mai. The shell she'd kept herself sealed inside had all but shattered, and who knew what would happen now?

And then there was Shizuru. The first—hell, the only—person who'd gotten through Natsuki's shell _before_ the Festival. Natsuki's best friend. Whose feelings toward Natsuki, as it turned out, were not precisely friendly. Whose affection was of the kind that implied kisses and red roses and bodies entwined while bathed in moonlight and walking down a church aisle in a fancy white dress.

Whose affection Natsuki was becoming more and more certain she returned.

It wasn't easy for her to think of it in those terms or easily accept it—when had she _ever_ easily accepted _anything_ about her feelings?—but it wasn't just that losing Shizuru out of her life would tear a gaping hole in her heart. That was a given. It was that, thinking of it in terms of being a _lover_...the idea of returning those feelings was starting to edge past "possible" and into the dangerous new territory of "attractive."

"So what are we doing here, Shizuru?" It was a cloudless night, and the moon, nearly full, turned the sand to silver. Natsuki was reminded of the thought she'd just had about Shizuru's feelings, of the two of them in the moonlight—_What is she, contagious?_

"_Ara_, such a cute blush. I wonder what Natsuki could be thinking."

"I-idiot!" The teasing felt even worse when it was actually true!

"But that isn't what I was thinking."

It was a cool night, and the breeze off the water made things even cooler. Shizuru led them down to where two folding lounge chairs had been set up, with a picnic basket between them.

"What's all this?"

Shizuru seemed intent, though, on holding back the answers for as long as possible. She waited until they were snuggled under lightweight blankets on their seats, and opened the basket to reveal a thermos bottle and plastic cups. She filled the cups with steaming hot cocoa and added marshmallows, then passed one to Natsuki. The dark-haired girl drank, nearly burning her tongue, making Shizuru giggle. She took a more cautious second sip.

"Mmm, this is really good, Shizuru."

"Thank you. I got the chocolate for it from a shop that specializes in imported sweets."

"Wait—you 'got the chocolate'? As in, this is homemade cocoa? No wonder it's so good!" The sudden compliment took Shizuru completely off-guard, and it occurred to Natsuki that she wasn't necessarily the only one who was trying to cope with changing perspectives. She swiftly added, "I'm surprised there isn't a second thermos with tea for you, though."

"_Ikezu._" Shizuru flashed Natsuki her fake pout.

"You're a meanie, too. After all, here we are, snuggled up on the beach, drinking first-rate hot cocoa to keep out the chill, and you still haven't told me what we're doing here!"

Shizuru flashed her a smile.

"Well, Natsuki has been working very hard on her schoolwork, after all, missing out on all the fun things that happen over break. You couldn't even attend any of the seasonal festivals because you were too busy with your books."

"Yeah, that's true." Fighting Orphans and investigating secret government conspiracies had played hell with Natsuki's attendance during the year (not that her attitude had helped any).

"So, I thought that we could have a festival of our own."

"A...festival?"

"Mm-hm." Shizuru said, nodding, then raised her voice. "Kiyohime! Duran!"

A loud woof from Natsuki's Child answered Shizuru's call, and then there was the dull boom of two shells firing. A couple of seconds later, the Flash Cartridges burst, sending out sprays of green and blue sparks showering the sky over the water. A moment later, there was the scratch of a light being struck, and Kiyohime, previously near-invisible in the shadows, began to juggle a dozen or more hissing, spitting sparklers in her six heads, keeping the fireworks tumbling through the air (although the third head occasionally dropped one) in a display of light. Duran continued to chip in every minute or so.

"It wouldn't be a festival without fireworks, would it?"

"Sh—Shizuru..." There was a hitch in Natsuki's voice as she watched the display. "I...I don't know what to say." _Gah! You know what to say!_ she told herself, suddenly angry. Shizuru always knew how to do that, to slip inside her defenses and touch her heart with the grand gestures and, even more so, with the small kindnesses, using the same knowledge of Natsuki that made her so very good at teasing her. _While I—_

It bothered Natsuki sometimes, that Shizuru always seemed to be the one _doing_ things between them. Shizuru gave her care, kindness, trust, support, and Natsuki gave back—what? Entertainment value, when her embarrassment and bluster made Shizuru laugh? Okay, so maybe Shizuru's actions during the HiME Festival had gone a long way toward balancing the scales—if a few days of utter insanity could be said to balance years of selfish, unconscious cruelty. But they were slipping back into the same patterns, again, starting the dance from the beginning.

Natsuki didn't want that any more. Tears stung at her eyes as she realized just how much she didn't want it.

"Natsuki, is something wrong?" Shizuru asked, worried, because of _course_ she'd been watching Natsuki's face and of _course_ she'd see the tears, the upset look.

"Yes, yes it is," Natsuki admitted.

"I'm sorry," Shizuru said at once, just making it worse. "I wanted to do something special for Natsuki but I've gone too far again and—"

"That's not it!" Natsuki cut her off. Shizuru looked startled, not an expression anyone often saw her show. "That's not it," she repeated, more softly. Then she took a deep breath.

"I'm not good with words like you are, Shizuru. I can't pick out a well-turned phrase to carry exactly the shadings of meaning and implication that I want, so I'm just going to come out and say it." Natsuki's gut twisted; she'd been in genuine I-could-get-killed-out-here battles where she wasn't half this scared. "Look, I know you had a pretty nasty obsession there and it ended up really working me over, and you're trying to make up for that. But I had my obsession, too, and while it may not have hit you directly like yours did to me, it made me a pretty bad friend."

"I never thought that, Natsuki."

"Yeah, well, you were crazy in love with me." She took a deep breath. "The point is, I want it to change. My past is all...past, I guess...now, and your feelings are all out in the open instead of being bottled up like a pressure cooker. So I...want us to be different, too. I want to do things for you, not just selfishly accept what you give me."

_I want to love you back._

"Gah! I knew I couldn't say this right!" she exclaimed, slapping the chair arm in frustration, though in truth Shizuru's stunned look might have been because she _was_ saying it right. It was the same look she'd had in the shattered chapel during the Festival, where they'd died together, and Natsuki had gone farther in confessing her feelings than she had before or sense.

Funny how it was easier to say things like that when she didn't expect to have to deal with consequences, with the future.

But it did give her an idea.

She reached up with one hand, cupping the side of Shizuru's face, her wind-stung cheek cool against Natsuki's palm.

_Is this...what I want for us?_ If she had any doubts, she needed to stop now, while she was still safe, somewhere she could take it back. A person couldn't break promises that hadn't been made. But—

_Yes. Yes, it is._

She'd always been better at expressing herself through actions than words, anyway. This felt right, flowed naturally, to brush her thumb over Shizuru's lips, to feel their softness, watch them part slightly at the touch. To lean in, bending her head to the side just a bit, and close her lips over Shizuru's own, softly. Lovingly. Because _love_ was definitely what she felt for Shizuru. Maybe she'd never be as good as the older girl at anticipating what the other needed, at providing the small kindnesses that came from a close understanding of her needs. There was no chance she'd ever be as good at _saying_ it.

But one thing was for certain: no matter what it took, she was going to make sure that Shizuru knew exactly how much she meant to Natsuki.

Promises didn't have to be in words, either.


	11. This Is Why Yukino Prefers Plants

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Natsuki always enjoyed a good run. The feeling of getting out and doing something physical, covering ground with her legs, the ache in her muscles from a good workout and the satisfaction of completing that work without getting too winded was always fun.

"Too bad Shizuru never joins us," Natsuki said. Duran, running along beside her, gave a yip in reply. "Every time I ask, she always suggests _other_ forms of aerobic exercise for two." Which wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but she wanted to do that _in addition_ to her normal exercise, not in place of it. "Ah, well, at least I've got you with me, boy."

No sooner had she said that than Duran took off at full speed, leaving Natsuki behind. He'd left the path and was sprinting across the grass, and Natsuki had a sinking feeling that she knew what was going on. She took off in hot pursuit and after three minutes of running at a dead sprint she finally caught up, if only because Duran had stopped, barking up towards the branches of a tree.

"Natsuki!"

Natsuki blushed at Akane Higurashi's angry tone.

"Sorry, Akane." She grabbed Duran's collar and yanked him back from the tree. "Hey, you, you're embarrassing yourself here! What do you think Shizuru will say when we get home?"

Duran gave a sort of hopeful whimper.

"Nice try. You know her. She _always_ finds out. And Kiyohime will probably laugh at you."

Duran's ears drooped. Meanwhile, Akane was crooning up into the tree, her arms outstretched.

"Now, now, it's okay to come down; that nasty doggie won't hurt you."

The leaves shook, and a yellow-and-silver flash dropped from the branches to the ground. Hari nuzzled against Akane's leg.

"You know, this wouldn't happen if he wouldn't always run away like that," Natsuki pointed out. "Duran doesn't care about catching anything; he just likes to chase stuff."

"Hari's just a kitten! Of course he's scared when a big dog comes chasing him!"

"Akane, Hari weighs like a hundred pounds!"

"So? He's still just a kitten," the brunette protested.

"Hey, is this the dog, then, that's been creating the trouble?"

The girls and pets looked up at the uniformed police officer approaching.

"Trouble?" Natsuki asked. "He didn't knock anybody down or break anything, did he?"

"No, no, but when a dog goes running loose through the park barking, it causes quite a disturbance."

"He was chasing my friend's cat," Natsuki explained, pointing at Hari. The policeman looked back and forth between the metal dog with rifles growing on his back to the equally metallic puma-sized cat.

"Well, seeing as no one was hurt, I suppose I can let it go this time, but you should really consider keeping him on a leash, miss, for his own safety as well as other people's."

Duran whimpered, his ears drooping.

"It's your own fault," Natsuki told him unsympathetically.

"I presume that all of his licenses are up to date?" the officer added.

Natsuki nodded.

"Uh-huh." She turned Duran's collar around so the tags could be seen. "Here's his dog license, and his shots."

The officer examined the tags, then frowned.

"I don't see a—"

Natsuki sighed, cutting him off, then took out her wallet.

"They don't make a dog tag for that one, so I carry it with me." She fished out a card and handed it to the policeman. "See? His firearms license is up to date, too."


	12. Tea or Tease

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Kiyohime looked seriously at the tea tray with all of her eyes, then with the speed of a striking cobra (or six striking cobras), the hydra launched into action. Her first head plucked the cosy off the teapot so that the second head could lift the pot, snaking its neck through the handle before coming around to grip the spout in its mouth for extra support. The third head, being slightly clumsy, got the job of holding the cup steady. The fourth head picked up the milk pitcher and poured in a dollop, and the fifth used the tongs to transfer a cube of sugar from the bowl to the cup. Finally, the sixth head took a spoon and stirred, earning warning glares from the others when the tea nearly sloshed over the rim of the cup.

Holding the saucer carefully between three heads, she descended from the coffee table and slithered into the bedroom. Leaning back as far as she could on her main body and stretching upwards, she was able to set the tea on one of the nightstands.

"Good girl, Kiyohime!" her owner enthused, scratching each head in turn behind the crest while they made little purring sounds.

"I swear, Shizuru, you are the laziest person in the world sometimes," Natsuki said from the other side of the bed. "You can't get up to get your own cup of tea?"

"But...but it's a chilly evening!" Shizuru protested in mock helplessness. "I don't want to get out from under these comfy warm covers."

"Yeah, okay, but I could have got your tea for you. It'd take what, two seconds, and you wouldn't have to put Kiyohime through those contortions."

Shizuru glomped Natsuki around the waist.

"_Ikezu!_ The bed loses its entire snuggliness quotient without my Natsuki! You wouldn't abandon me like that?"

Natsuki sighed.

"You are totally ridiculous sometimes, do you know that?"

"...Yes?"

Looking down into Shizuru's wide red eyes, Natsuki gave up and laughed.

"I love you, you know _that_?"

"Yes, but it's good to hear it," Shizuru said, happily nuzzling her head against Natsuki's belly. "I love you too, Natsuki." She pressed a kiss against the soft skin just below her lover's navel. Natsuki shivered, but pushed Shizuru away.

"Finish your tea first, or you'll hurt Kiyo-chan's feelings."

Shizuru's crimson eyes glinted roguishly.

"But you're supposed to wash down your sweets with milk tea, not eat them after."

"And you're stuck with me for life, which makes me a main course, not a teatime snack," Natsuki riposted.

Shizuru grinned and sat up.

"You win," she said, "but only because I really like the sound of that."

"It would kinda suck if you didn't."

"True."

She then leaned in and kissed Natsuki long and deeply, leaving her lover quivering, then turned and calmly picked up her tea.

"Appetizer," she summed up.

_She always gets the last word_, Natsuki said to herself. As usual, though, she wasn't particularly displeased at the thought. Shizuru was, after all, Shizuru. A shy smile was on her lips as she watched the tawny-haired girl make a teasing production of slowly finishing the entire cup of tea.

Kiyohime helpfully pulled Duran's blanket up over the sleeping dog's ears.


	13. Tug o' Hydra

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

_You have been in Afghanistan, I presume._

"Rrrrr!"

"Growf!"

"Hissss!"

Natsuki flinched, then tried to get back to her book.

_You have been in—_

A rattling of porcelain cut through any attempt at concentration. She looked over from the couch towards the pets. Duran and Kiyohime were engaged in a vigorous game of tug-o'-war, using their special braided rope. The thick end was clamped between Duran's jaws, but two of the thin ends hung limply. Kiyohime's second and fifth heads, unwilling to give up so easily, had let go of their ropes and instead coiled themselves around one leg of the side table. As Natsuki watched, Duran gave another fierce pull, and the table shifted a fraction of an inch, causing the rattle to repeat.

"Oi!" Natsuki snapped. "Knock it off! Or do you two want to try explaining to Shizuru how you tipped over the table and smashed her Heian-era tea set?"

She didn't think she'd ever seen seven such sheepish faces before, but they managed it somehow.

"It's fine to play, but don't smash up the furniture, okay?" she said. Duran nuzzled at her hand for reassurance and she gave him a scratch behind the ears. "And if Kiyohime grabs something breakable, that doesn't mean you have to keep pulling, boy."

Kiyohime's fifth head gave a hiss that sounded eerily like a snicker to Natsuki.

"And if you cheat to win it doesn't count, either!"

The third head poked the fifth sharply with its snout. Natsuki wasn't sure if that meant "play fair" or "thanks for getting the loophole in the rules closed on us, numbnut." It could have gone either way; she was, after all, Shizuru's hydra.

Natsuki picked up her book again while Duran and Kiyohime pounced on the tug rope. She flipped through the pages, trying to find her place.

_You have been in Afghanistan, I—_"Whaaaa!"

The game had once more gotten serious. Duran's clawed feet, it seemed, gave him the edge on the living room rug (as opposed to the kitchen tile, where Kiyohime's lower center of gravity helped her out on the linoleum) and the hydra was again on the defensive. She'd listened to her scolding, though, and had not grabbed on to any of the furniture.

Instead, she had coiled three necks around Natsuki's arm.

The book went flying, and Natsuki only saved herself from being pulled off the couch by grabbing the back of the seat. She swung one leg down and planted her foot firmly on the floor to brace herself.

"Hey, hey! Oh, no, you don't!"

Duran, at the other end of the chain, kept right on pulling, with Kiyohime's second, fifth, and sixth heads giving as good as they got. Natsuki, though, was _not_ going to get hauled onto the floor; she swung her body around into a half-seated position so she could use both legs.

With Duran pulling hard at one end and Natsuki refusing to budge at the other, Kiyohime's refusal to let go led to her, inexorably, being pulled into the air, with three heads pointed one way and three the other, her body suspended off the floor between them.

Just then, the study door opened.

"Na-tsu-ki," Shizuru caroled. "I finished my paper and—"

She broke off, crimson eyes taking in the scene before her.

"Natsuki," she began again, in a very different tone of voice, "would you care to explain why you and your dog are apparently using Kiyohime as a wishbone?"


	14. Loved Ones Are Always Happy to Help

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"Now, let's see, the audio output hooks up to...ah, here," Shizuru said with satisfaction as she inserted the connector into its slot. "Now, I just plug in the power cable here and..."

A loud chime rose from the entertainment center's surround-sound speakers as Natsuki's new videogame system announced that it was set up and ready for a busy afternoon of street racing or alien blasting or whatever Natsuki preferred to be doing.

"Personally," Shizuru remarked, "I think one of those dating simulations where you get to romance all those different pretty girls would be fun. Although, maybe I should be glad Natsuki doesn't play that kind of game. After all, she has non-simulated dating with me, and I wouldn't want her interest widening."

Shizuru's pet hydra did not seem particularly concerned by this conundrum. Kiyohime appeared to be enjoying the sunbeam streaming through the living room's picture window; her six heads were draped across Duran's back while the steel wolf napped peacefully. The second head turned and offered a sleepy hiss of acknowledgement, then laid back down with the others.

The college student wriggled out from behind the entertainment center's cabinet, wondering if she was turning into one of those people who talked to their pets. It was Natsuki's fault, she decided; now that her lover wasn't skipping school all the time to hunt down murderous ancient conspiracies, the regimented schedule of a high-schooler kept her busy. And since Shizuru had graduated, they spent their days on different campuses. If they hadn't moved in together they might not even see each other some days.

"On the other hand, this means that I was here when the delivery came, so I can surprise Natsuki by getting her new videogame console hooked up and ready to play by the time she comes home," Shizuru mused, momentarily surrendering the "talks to pets" battle. "She'll probably be very enthusiastic in her thanks. Although by the time she gets around to thanking me, her hands will very likely be sore and cramped from playing, so I'll have to do most of the work."

Kiyohime's sixth head whimpered, not being particularly interested in the details of her mistress's love life.

"Now, what's left to do?" She'd gotten everything from the box properly connected. The Internet gaming account was a different matter, as Natsuki would need to set that up herself with her own password, credit card information, and so on. Shizuru entertained herself for a few minutes with dreams of the future when they'd be at that "married" stage as a couple, with joint finances and otherwise intertwined lives, before returning to the job at hand.

Several games had come bundled with the system, so she stripped off their shrink-wrap and set them on the coffee table for Natsuki to choose from. That left only one thing in the shipping container: Natsuki had not been satisfied with the system's default controllers and had instead ordered an upscale version, with wireless function, programmable button sequences, full autofire, and a host of other bells and whistles.

"It probably even makes coffee," Shizuru decided, and stated to open the package, only to be stymied. The plastic bubble packing, like much of its ilk, had the approximate hardness of cast iron and no pull tab or other handy way to unseal itself. Even the desk scissors she'd used to cut the packing tape only made nicks in it.

"So what would Natsuki do to get this open?" Shizuru wondered. _Probably lose her temper and shoot it...although this material would probably make good bulletproof vests—_"Oh!"

She shook Duran awake. He gave a confused "rowr" sound, kind of like a yawn, growl, and whimper all rolled into one.

"Come on, boy, this is for Natsuki. Ready? Load Chrome Cartridge!"

Kiyohime, wisely, took cover under the coffee table.

"Fire!"

The explosion was almost deafening, but the armor-piercing shell punched right through the plastic packaging, without touching the controller inside.

"Good boy!" Shizuru praised him enthusiastically. "That was perfect shooting, Duran! Now I can finish getting Natsuki's console set up before she gets home...and I'll probably have time to plaster over the bullet holes in the wall, too."


	15. Maybe He's Still Under Warranty?

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"Ninety thousand yen!" Natsuki yelped. "That's outrageous!"

"What's going on?" Shizuru asked, drawn away from her studying by her girlfriend's disbelieving voice.

"The bill from Duran's latest trip to the vet came in today's mail. It's eighty-nine thousand, six hundred and forty yen!"

"_Ara, ara_," murmured Shizuru, surprised. Natsuki glared at her.

"You know how some households have a swear jar, where if you swear you've gotta drop in a hundred yen or so? We need one to charge you by the 'ara.' Yeah! It'll be like your _ara_-ly wage!"

Shizuru frowned back.

"Perhaps Natsuki should leave the jokes to the professionals?"

Her lover sighed.

"Yeah, okay, that was weak. This vet bill has me off my game."

"Do you need money? I can help if you—"

"No, I'm good. My dad paid my allowance for the quarter on time, and I've got plenty in the budget to cover the bill. It's just the principle of the thing! How can a vet bill possibly run ninety thousand yen?"

Shizuru pulled out a chair and sat down.

"There are some procedures that can be quite expensive. I don't remember Duran being particularly sick any time last month, though?"

"He wasn't! I just took him in for his rabies shot. And his left cartridge magazine kept jamming on the fourth shell, so I had them take a look at that."

"I see."

Natsuki gave her a suspicious glance.

"You're surprisingly unsurprised. And whatever happened to gushing with sympathy over your girlfriend's troubles?"

"I am sympathetic! It's just...well, I can see your veterinarian's point, too."

"How?"

"For one thing, I don't think that he has any other patients who require gunsmithing skills. That demands specialized tools and training, I believe, particularly on a dog."

"Okay, that's probably something to that. But what about the rabies shot? He's gotta give a million of those a year, right?"

Shizuru shook her head.

"But Natsuki, I do not believe that an ordinary hypodermic needle could penetrate Duran's skin."

"But...I...crap, you've got a point. It's not every day a vet practice requires drilling through sheet metal." She tossed the bill onto the table. "Okay, that does it. Next time I'm taking him to the auto body shop instead. At least they'll throw in a free rustproofing for his undercoat with every repair job."


	16. The Scorpion and the Frog

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Tokiha-Okuzaki family pet)_

Once upon a time, a scorpion approached a frog sitting by the bank of a stream.

"Excuse me, Mr. Frog," it said, "but I need to get to the other side of the stream. Could you carry me on your back as you swim across?"

"But Mr. Scorpion," the frog replied nervously, "if I let you on my back, you will sting me with your poisonous tail."

This was not an unreasonable fear, for most animals do not like to let poisonous creatures crawl on their backs. But the scorpion was not deterred.

"Mr. Frog, if I were to sting you in the middle of the stream, and you died, then I would drown. Surely I would not do such a foolish thing."

The frog thought about this for a while, and decided that it was logical.

"All right, then. Get on my back, and I will take you across the stream."

The frog hopped into the water, the scorpion jumped onto his back, and they set off swimming. But sure enough, in accordance with its nature, when they were about halfway across the river, the scorpion viciously stabbed its stinger at the frog's unprotected back.

The frog, quite offended by this antisocial behavior, bucked the scorpion off into the water, then zapped it with his tongue and ate it, scorpion apparently tasting something like lobster, only spicier. He then continued on his way across the stream, where his owner was waiting for him.

"What kind of idiot scorpion tries to sting a metal frog?" Akira groused, picking up Gennai. "And now I need to touch up the scratch in your paint job, too."

"Ribbit."


	17. Take a Winter Trip

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Natsuki Kuga did not like winter.

This was, perhaps, surprising. "Ice princess" was more or less her social motif, or at least it had been. Her HiME Element had been pistols that shot ice bullets. Duran's most powerful attack was his Silver Cartridge ice shells.

"Just because I use it doesn't mean that I have to like it," she muttered under her breath. She looked out through the house's front windows, verifying that yes, indeed, they'd gotten nearly a foot of snow overnight. "Did we move to Hokkaido when I wasn't paying attention?"

"Perhaps your parents should have named you 'summer princess' after all," Shizuru remarked. Natsuki's girlfriend was, predictably, sitting at the breakfast table with a steaming cup of tea between her palms. "It would certainly have fit."

"Shouldn't you be getting dressed?"

"I don't have any lectures today until twelve-thirty."

"Is that a smirk I see, Miss University Student?"

"_Ara_, would I find amusement in my Natsuki's so incredibly cute fussing over the weather?"

"Yes. And I am not being cute!"

"But Natsuki looks like a giant ball of cuddly fluffiness in her puffy winter coat and fuzzy earmuffs and tasseled hat and tall winter boots!"

Natsuki blushed at the squeeing.

"What's cute about being wrapped up like a mummy, anyway?"

"Thoughts of unwrapping you later?"

The blush went from faint pink to tomato red.

"I-idiot! Anyway, some of us don't have time to stand around and make jokes." _Especially since I can't use my bike with the roads the way they are_, she thought. She yanked open the door and stomped out.

"Natsuki—" Shizuru began, but the screen door swung shut before she could finish whatever her next joke would be. The entire front yard lay under a blanket of pristine whiteness sparkling in the sunlight, and even Natsuki had to admit that it was rather pretty.

"I'd appreciate it more on the other side of a window in a room with a roaring fire and a mug of hot cocoa," she grunted.

Since it would take several minutes of shoveling just to _find _the front walk, Natsuki figured she'd just cut straight across the yard. She took one step, then another, feeling her boots sink in and compress the snow, but not all the way down. At least she wouldn't need snowshoes, since the—

Her thought was cut off sharply as the snow completely gave way under her with her third step and she found herself stepping into an empty space under the crusted surface. Natsuki windmilled, trying to regain her balance, but it was too late, and she pitched forward, faceplanting full-length into a sea of fluffy white powder.

Halfway across the yard, a snakelike purple head popped up through the snow like a submarine's periscope. Another, then another followed suit, until all six of Kiyohime's heads were looking to see what all the commotion was.

Natsuki heard the door open behind her.

"Oh, Natsuki...That's what I was trying to tell you. I let Kiyohime out to play in the snow this morning. She doesn't get a chance to burrow very often, you know, since we don't want her digging up the yard, so she's been tunneling all over out there for the better part of an hour. We need to be careful where we step."

"Now she tells me," Natsuki mumbled around a mouthful of snow. _Seriously, I really need to look into how this whole hibernation thing works._


	18. The Early Bird Gives Fashion Tips

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Munakata family pet)_

The morning sun was just beginning to filter through the leaves of the trees, the last of dawn's silver-gray fading from the sky in favor of daytime's brilliant blue. It looked like it was going to be an absolutely splendid spring day.

From their dark coloration and scavenging habits, crows have gotten a reputation as birds of ill omen, stalkers of the night along with owls and bats and other creatures that humans weren't entirely comfortable with. For his part, the exceptionally large (bigger, indeed, than a raven) crow did look like he could do with tucking his head under his wing and napping until sundown. Or at least to dip his beak into a steaming mug of strong coffee.

Still, Yatagarasu decided, it was time to get up. He twitched his single claw, which was a little tight from keeping him secure on his perch all night, fluffed out his wings, then extended his neck and gave a long, luxurious stretch. He felt a little better, though he was still bleary from a lack of sleep. Ordinarily he resented terms like "birdbrain" or "featherwit," but in this case they accurately reflected his groggy awareness.

He was not doing this for the fun of it, or even for the perceived lifestyle benefits of "early to bed, early to rise." No, he had a more selfish motivation, rooted in a different pithy proverb: "the early bird gets the worm."

And sure enough, he realized with some amazement, there was a big, juicy worm right there in front of him! He yawned once, flapped experimentally to make sure he was awake enough to fly, and dove, snapping the worm up in his beak and launching into the air again.

"Aaaaaugh!" Shiho screamed. Being woken up by having one of her ponytails nearly yanked out of her skull wasn't exactly a peaceful experience, and it hurt like heck besides. "Let go!" she wailed, swatting reflexively at what was pulling and chasing a startled Yatagarusu away from his intended prey. "You stupid bird, what were you _doing_?"

Yatagarusu flapped back to his perch and gave an abashed caw.

"Aw, geez, I've _really_ got to get a new hairstyle!"


	19. HiME Rarely Buy Power Tools

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Higurashi family pet)_

Kazuya Kurauchi grunted as he yanked another branch free of the brush pile and paused to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of one of his work gloves.

"Are you okay, Kazu-kun? Do you need a break?" his girlfriend asked.

"No, I'm good. Besides, I'd like to try and get through all this today so that we don't have to come back tomorrow."

The country property belonged to Kazuya's uncle; rather than hire a professional to clear out some of the brush he'd gotten his nephew to do the job. It benefited everyone: Kazuya got some money over summer break, and his uncle Jiro saved versus the cost of hiring workers who weren't family.

"That would be nice. We could start our summer trip this weekend if you got paid in time," Akane Higurashi agreed. "But are you sure you're all right with me picking the place?"

"Yeah. After all, if it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even be able to do this job and get the money to go. It's not like during the school year when we've got our part-time work at Linden Baum."

"Well, okay then. But I'll be sure to pick somewhere I can show you my new bikini." They both blushed furiously at that one, Kazuya at the thought of Akane in a skimpy swimsuit and Akane at her uncharacteristic boldness.

"Er, anyway, better get working!" Kazuya changed the subject.

"A-all right. Go to it, Hari!"

The golden metal cat lifted his head and the spinning blades of the jet-like intake in his chest began to rotate at full speed. Kazuya pushed the end of the branch into the opening and the blades gave a rasping roar as they ground the branch down to shreds which were sucked through the tube and blasted out the back end to add to the growing pile.

"Perfect!" Kazuya said as he reached for the next branch. Akane scratched Hari under the chin.

"You're such a good boy, Hari! Thanks to you, Kazu-kun's Uncle Jiro didn't need to rent a wood chipper!"


	20. Sounds Like Another Stamp Price Increase

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"Oi, Shizuru," Natsuki called from the kitchen table, "would you stop pacing? I can't concentrate on this essay!"

"If Natsuki would finish her work on time, she would not have to skip school in order to complete it by the 5:00 p.m. deadline," Shizuru pointed out.

"We're talking about you here." Natsuki refused to budge from the point, particularly as budging would mean than she'd have to admit pulling three gaming all-nighters in a week was not a good idea. "And what's with the pacing, anyway? You're like this clump of ladylike serenity most of the time. If the house was burning down you'd sit there and sip tea until the firefighters broke in to save you." The more she thought about it, the more she found it really, really weird that Shizuru was so nervous she was pacing. "Shizuru, what's going on?" she asked, her voice softening. She was fairly certain that it was an important part of the dating thing—or, hell, even the best friend thing—that she was there when her sweetheart was worried or upset.

"I'm...expecting a letter in today's mail," Shizuru admitted, or at least halfway admitted, because it also wasn't in Shizuru's nature to share her personal concerns with anyone, not even Natsuki (heck, it had taken an alien god-thingy, dueling conspiracies, death threats to her beloved, and a major psychotic breakdown just to get a love confession out of her).

Natsuki, of course, was having none of this.

"It must be one heck of a letter to have you so riled up." A chirpy woof came from under the table. "See, even Duran agrees."

"Natsuki..."

"C'mon, out with it."

Shizuru sighed.

"I'm expecting to hear back from my mother," she said. "I wrote to my family last week informing them of our relationship, and I should receive my mother's response today."

"Last week?" Natsuki asked. "Shizuru, we moved into this house at the beginning of second year. That was like, eight months ago."

"I did not want to rush into things in case Natsuki—"

Natsuki glared at her.

"If you finish that sentence with 'decided she was not in love with me after all,' you are in _serious_ trouble."

"It's not easy to accept when life hands you everything you've ever wanted on a silver platter!" Shizuru defended herself. "I did spend several years convinced that there was no possibility you would even tolerate my feelings, let alone return them."

"Not the point. And what's with all this letter stuff anyway? Don't you Fujino types know how to use the phone?"

"It would be improper to discuss important family matters over the telephone," Shizuru replied primly. "Significant communications require the formality of the written word."

"You people have a ritual for everything. I mean, you actually know what day to expect the response back, even though you're unsure enough of what the response will be to get all nervous over it."

"Manners and etiquette allow people to occupy the same space without interfering with each other's privacy or comfort level."

"...Is that your way of telling me to pick my dirty sweatshirts off the bedroom floor?"

"_Ara_, Natsuki _does_ understand formal conversation!"

"Idiot. Besides, there's a rule in there somewhere that says if you peel clothes off me, then you have to pick them up yourself. There must be."

"Then I should stop taking off Natsuki's clothes?" Shizuru pouted.

"I...wouldn't go that far," Natsuki mumbled, feeling her cheeks grow hot. "But anyway, the mailman should be here any time now, and then you'll let me get my essay written, right?"

The word "mailman," though, was an unfortunate one to say aloud. Growling, Duran leapt to his feet and dashed towards the front door.

"Duran!" Natsuki windmilled for balance, since he'd half knocked her out of her chair. She caught herself by the edge of the table. "Blast it, Duran, get back here! He's not even here yet. And besides, we've talked about this!"

The age-old conflict between dog and mailman had never been an even one. On their side the postal workers of the world had the moral righteousness of knowing that they had a sacred trust to deliver the words of far-off people to one another. Against that, dogs had teeth. Duran, however, made things ridiculous. At least the average Doberman or Rottweiler didn't come with large-caliber firearms!

Not that Duran had ever shot a mail carrier before. Or even shot _at_ one. Mostly. And it had been a Flash Cartridge anyway, so it wasn't like anyone could have been hurt. It wasn't Duran's fault the mailman had been blinded by the flare and tripped, spraining his ankle. And Duran hadn't bitten him, either, just put a paw on his chest and held him there until Shizuru had returned home from her morning lectures. It hadn't been much longer than an hour. And seriously, it wasn't Duran's fault postal uniform pants held a stain.

"Guy wasn't such a coward, he wouldn't have to worry about it," Natsuki completed her thoughts aloud.

"Natsuki..."

"Hey, boy!" she snapped. Duran turned his head quizzically. "I know it's instinct and all, but you leave the mailman alone today, do you understand me?"

He made a sort of growly-whimper noise that suggested he didn't like the idea.

"Do you want to be the one to explain to Shizuru that you caused her to miss her important letter?"

Duran whimpered and covered his eyes with his paws.

Kiyohime's sixth head had been following the proceedings with interest while the hydra lay curled up on her favorite purple pillow. She knew that Duran would mean well, but it was also possible that in the excitement of the moment, instinctive imperatives would override good sense. She didn't want to see her friend get in trouble or her mistress get upset.

She'd just have to help out, she decided.

~X X X~

Kintaro Tanaka whistled as he strolled up the front walk to the Kuga-Fujino residence. This was the place that had spawned horror stories back at the local post office, driving Manabe to demand to be put on another route, even though it was a longer one usually served by newbies working their way up. Bah! Dealing with aggressive dogs was part of a mail carrier's life. If Manabe couldn't hack it, he should have done something cushy like go to law school!

He took several letters out of his bag as he went up the steps and opened the screen door. Tanaka was just reaching for the mail slot when it was pushed open from the inside and a large purple snake thrust its head out.

Tanaka gasped in surprise, pulling his hand away. The snake reached up towards him, and suddenly three—no, four—no, five more snakes squirmed out, a whole nest of them writhing at him from the mail slot, mouths wide open as if they couldn't wait to sink their fangs into a nice, juicy mailman.

Yelping in fear, Tanaka jumped back, only to find his shoes scrabbling for purchase at the edge of the step. He fell back, landing on his rump in the grass next to the walk. He lost his grip on the letters, and they went flying like special delivery confetti. He scrambled backwards, heels cutting ruts in the grass until he managed to get his feet under him. Tanaka sprang upright, grabbed his letter bag in both hands, and bolted for the sidewalk like some kind of mythological monster was chasing him.

Kiyohime's heads looked at each other in confusion. All he'd had to do was put the mail in her mouths and she'd have taken it inside for him. There was certainly no need for such theatrics.

Duran was right, she decided. If postal workers were people who acted like that, then they were definitely suspicious characters who should not be trusted around the house.

~X X X~

"Well?" Natsuki demanded as Shizuru nervously tore open the slightly rumpled envelope. "Don't keep me in suspense. What does it say?"

"Um...'Congratulations on coming out of the closet. It's about time; all that angsty suffering in silence is undignified for a Fujino. Bring her to meet us at your next break if she can come.' _Ara, ara_, that was...succinct."

Natsuki grinned.

"I think I'm going to like your mom."

"Natsuki _ikezu_!"


	21. Giving Credit Where It's Due

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Tokiha-Minagi family pets)_

Natsuki Kuga was not by any stretch of the imagination a mall rat. Her opinion of shopping, unless it was for lingerie, bike parts, or video games, was to get in, select, pay, and get out. She found Nao's rather casual attitude towards property rights positively tempting sometimes, not because of the money but just because skipping the "stop at the counter and pay" step meant one less thing to do at the store.

For all her distaste, though, she couldn't just fob off all the shopping on Shizuru, and so one Saturday afternoon she found herself somewhere between the food court and the Lotions'N'Notions. Her inner debate over whether to buy Shizuru a tin of lavender bath salts (and risk being teased all evening about thinking of Shizuru's skin, Shizuru's scent, Shizuru naked in the tub, and similar matters) or to buy herself a soft pretzel with mustard and an Orange Julius (and risk indigestion) was broken off when she saw a cluster of her friends, acquaintances, and weird quasi-mythological critters heading for the beauty salon.

"Hey, Natsuki!" Mai called, waving, so Natsuki wandered over.

"Hey, Mai, everybody. What's up?"

"Shiho's getting a haircut."

"Good call—hey, whoa! Oi, what _happened_ to you?"

Natsuki's surprise came because Shiho had turned slightly, and Yatagarusu (who was sitting her shoulder, camouflaging the damage) moved away from the redhead's hair, showing that not only was Shiho's right front sausage-curl gone, but the stump was a charred black mess.

"Oniichan saved my life!" Shiho squealed, hugging Tate's arm and rubbing against him. Far from looking like a conquering hero, Tate glanced away, refusing to meet Natsuki's gaze.

"Okay, Mai, I've got to hear this," Natsuki decided. If nothing else, it would be nice to hear about someone _else_ being the butt of the universe's sense of humor.

Kagutsuchi mewled and pointed a wing at the sign showing the salon's closing time.

"Nice try," Mai told him. Clearly _someone_ was in the doghouse. Or phoenix-dragon-thingy-house, as appropriate. His head and tail sagged.

"Shiho invited us to a party!" Mikoto said brightly.

"My grandfather was having a barbecue, and asked if I wanted to invite some of my friends over," Shiho clarified. "So I thought of oniichan and Mai and Mikoto."

Natsuki wasn't sure that "the people that I got into a shooting war with over a boy" was a good synonym for "friends," but at least Shiho was trying to mend fences. And given that Natsuki was now _dating_ Shizuru after all they'd been through, she certainly wasn't one to argue against forgiveness.

"And of course, since she was inviting Mikoto, she had to invite me, too," Reito Kanzaki spoke up. He was smiling slightly, no doubt fully aware that Shiho's primary reason for inviting him was not for Mikoto's sake but to provide a second boy to keep Mai occupied away from Tate. Since Reito fully agreed with the idea, Natsuki knew he'd have been all too happy to play along. "Then, since she was inviting siblings, that made her think of Takumi, and since he was coming, that meant inviting Akira as well."

"And we brought Kagutsuchi, Miroku, and Gennai along so Yatagarusu would have somebody to play with," Takumi explained. He was holding Akira's hand, which had the ninja girl wearing a blushing-yet-happy expression Natsuki knew well from personal experience.

"Well, anyway, that made for a total of eight people with Shiho and her grandfather," Mai explained, "plus four CHILDs, and they only had enough food on hand for about half that. I felt kind of bad, honestly, but it seemed like her grandfather was actually really happy about it."

_Probably glad to see that Shiho had that many friends willing to come_, Natsuki decided.

"Anyway, he went off to the store for food, and Reito suggested that one of us should go along and help. Shiho's grandfather agreed, and dragged off Tate since he was basically a family member."

Reito, Natsuki observed, was the only person she'd met besides Shizuru who could smirk with just his eyes.

"So while we were waiting, someone turned on the baseball game, and we watched that for a while."

"It was Akira," Takumi supplied.

"So after Shiho's grandfather and Tate got back with the food, we went out to the yard, and while the guys were getting the grill going, Kagutsuchi and Miroku decided that they liked the baseball game so much they'd hit a few balls themselves."

Miroku waved his club.

"Wait, how does that work?" Natsuki asked. "Miroku's the only one with arms."

"Kagutsuchi would breathe fireballs and Miroku would hit them, smashing them into sparks. The temple walk was all stone, so it wasn't dangerous...until _somebody_ decided that he was tired of pitching batting practice and wanted to strike people out instead!"

"I guess when the pitch is fire breath it's easy to slip in a spitball?"

Everyone groaned at that, even the frog. Mai patted her friend on the shoulder.

"There were good things about when you were the ice princess with no sense of humor. Anyway, yes, Miroku swung and missed, and since they didn't have a backstop, the fireball kept on going and hit Shiho in the side of the head, setting her hair on fire!"

"And Tate put the fire out?"

"No, Reito did. He grabbed up the fire extinguisher and had the fire out before anything but hair got burnt. He was actually pretty cool!" Mai looked back up at the smirking wonder, impressed.

"But Shiho said that Tate saved her."

"He did!" Shiho insisted. "It's because of oniichan that Grandpa keeps a fire extinguisher around whenever we barbecue!"

"I was only ten!" Tate protested. "Anybody can have an accident with the lighter fluid at that age!"


	22. What Measure is a Hero?

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Sugiura family pet)_

_The stunning red-haired beauty looked out at the scene of chaos. In her soul she could feel the screams of the people, their desperate pleas for salvation rising on the cold autumn wind._

"When evil oppresses the land and causes the human spirit to shrink back in terror..."

She stepped forward boldly in dynamic pose.

"A beautiful maiden appears with a fighting spirit in her heart! For love, justice, and friendship she will do what no other will dare! She is—the HiME of Wind, Midori Sugiura!"

_The eyes of the multitude stare up, a desperate hope long thought snuffed out kindled anew in their depths._

"Though the foe is great, it cannot prevail against the steely claws of—_Gakuten O_!"

Silence reigned for a good twenty seconds except for dry, withered leaves rustling in the breeze.

"Here, boy," Midori sighed. Gakuten O lifted his needle-like head away from an interesting gopher hole and obediently trotted over to his mistress's side. She scratched him behind the base of his long, whip-like crest, then resumed her pose.

"The ground shakes as his wheels rush past—Gakuten O!"

She thrust her hand out before her. Now on cue, Gakuten O launched himself off the porch, his haunches and hind legs transforming into a chariot-like structure. It was too bad, Midori thought, that the CHILD was no longer at his original size, especially on mornings when she was late to work, though he at least could be a champion of justice spreading happiness by giving the neighborhood children rides.

Now, though, he rushed directly into battle with the forces of evil once again, eyes blazing with the desire to overcome his foe.

_Silver and gold shine in the sunlight, a brilliant light that drives the shadows from the people's spirits!_

Midori thrust her hand outward.

"Sweep them all from your path! Tornado!"

Gakuten O stopped in his tracks and leaned to his left so that his right wheel was raised slightly off the ground. It began to spin freely, whirring at fantastic speed, and blasted forth a swirling cannon of wind. Using his left wheel as a pivot, Gakuten O spun in an arc, whipping the high-pressure windstream across the yard to cover the full arc.

"Another triumph for the champions of justice, the HiME of Wind and Gakuten O!"

Behind Midori, the screen door squeaked on its hinges as Youko came out to see what was going on. The nurse still wore her bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, with a mug of coffee in her hand that had the silhouette of a shapely girl and the legend, "Chemists always get a reaction."

"Geez, Midori, what's all the racket?"

Bleary eyes surveyed the situation. She could see every square inch of the crisped brown grass the first frosts had left of her front lawn. To all sides of it, strewn across her northerly neighbor's driveway, out in the street, and in her southerly neighbor's yard, was a definite arc-shape of dead leaves that had been forcibly evicted from Youko's property. She surveyed the damage, took a deep breath, picked the morning paper off the front stoop, and nailed Midori over the head with it.

"Ow!"

"I know you agreed to help out with the household chores in exchange for me letting you stay here while you're apartment-hunting," Youko said, "but getting me in bad with the neighborhood association doesn't count as help."

"Geez, Youko, I—"

"There's a rake and garbage bags in the garage."

She turned around and went back into the house.

Midori looked at Gakuten O, then pumped her fist in the air.

"As one enemy falls, another reveals itself! The work of a champion of justice is never done! Onward to our next challenge, Gakuten O!"

~X X X~

_A/N: I admit it; I love the official romanization of Midori's CHILD's name; given that he's part lion, part chariot, and part thing-with-pointy-beak...and flies!...a wacky spelling just suits him!_


	23. Well, That Should Have Been Your Plan

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"So, did we forget anything?" Natsuki asked.

"I don't believe so," Shizuru said. "We have popcorn—"

"I still can't believe you insist on popping it fresh. I'd just have tossed a couple of bags in the microwave."

"Perhaps I am not as fond of artificial butter-flavor coating as is Natsuki?"

"I guess that's what they call adjusting to living with someone."

"Or perhaps I want to keep my Natsuki with me for a long, long time and not watch her have her poor heart fail from trying to force blood through her cholesterol-choked arteries."

"...You know you're going to pay for that, don't you?"

"Please be very strict in your punishment, mistress," Shizuru played it for all it was worth. At least four of Kiyohime's heads snickered. Natsuki just sighed. "In any case, we have the drinks, the remote control, Kiyohime's pillow, and Duran's rug. I believe we are ready."

"Guess so. Turn off the lights and let's go."

They settled close together on the couch and the pets curled up. Natsuki turned on the TV and started the movie. She'd wanted to see this one for a while, but figured that Halloween was the best time for a scary film. Ordinarily, she was pretty much an action-movie junkie, with her liking of a flick directly proportional to the number of explosions and emptied clips, but she watched rapt as the tension built, spooky events adding to the characters' growing unease, until the ghost made her first appearance.

"Eek!"

"Shizuru, what the heck are you doing?"

Shizuru looked up at her with a trembling lip and fearful, almost haunted scarlet eyes.

"It's a frightening movie! I...I just needed to hold on to you."

Natsuki was not buying any of this.

"And my breasts just happened to make convenient handholds?"

"Well, Natsuki never wants to watch scary movies, so I thought you planned for me to get scared and cling tightly to you, so you could then take advantage of me." Her hands, Natsuki noticed, were not letting go. Rather, they were becoming more active in their clinging. "I was just playing along with the scenario."

"Yeah, but Shizuru, I actually wanted to—ooh-watch this—ahh..."

Shizuru stopped any further commentary by covering Natsuki's lips with a kiss. Slowly, Natsuki tipped over onto the couch, beneath her girlfriend.

Duran glanced at Kiyohime and woofed. The hydra's first head nodded, then reached up over the top of the coffee table and poked a button four times with her nose, cranking up the volume.

After all, at least two members of the audience were still interested in what was happening on screen!

~X X X~

_A/N: To give credit where credit is due, I'll have to thank my wife, "Tarma Hartley," for the "Shizuru gropes Natsuki during a scary movie" part of this idea!_


	24. Was That Good Luck or Bad?

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Natsuki Kuga was very good at a lot of things: sports, schoolwork (when she bothered to show up for class), riding her motorcycle, hand-to-hand fighting, shooting firearms, making Shizuru Fujino's mouth go dry and heart go flippety-flop. Cooking, however, was not on that list. Odds were, her love of mayonnaise had come about because she wanted something to add some flavor to her endless parade of sandwiches and instant meals.

Shizuru, for her part, was actually quite good in the kitchen so long as it didn't involve pastry, and since they'd moved in together on account of the aforesaid flippety-floppiness (and a similar reaction of Natsuki's own) she was more than willing, generally, to handle the cooking chores. Still, there were times when she was too tired from a hard day or too pressed for time due to her university classes to cook a meal.

Tonight was such a night, and like any good sweetheart Natsuki had risen to the challenge.

She'd ordered Chinese take-out.

They'd had a fun dinner with a half-dozen or so samples loosely approximating a _dim sum_ assortment. Duran and Kiyohime had helped make sure there were no leftovers to go bad in the fridge.

"You have dumpling sauce on your nose," Natsuki told Duran. His tongue flicked out, but missed a spot. "Here, let me." She grabbed a napkin and mopped the steel muzzle clean. "There, good boy!" He thumped his tail happily on the floor, and she tossed him a fortune cookie.

"_Ara_, if you swallow your fortune does that mean you have better luck?" Shizuru asked when Duran wolfed the cookie down whole.

"I'm pretty sure it won't hurt him," Natsuki decided. She doubted that eating a slip of paper would even hurt a dog that _wasn't_ made of metal. Kiyohime, however, seemed to have learned from the example; her first head picked up one half of the cookie, the fourth head took the other half, and they snapped it in two. The sixth head extracted the fortune and handed it to Shizuru.

"Hm, 'You have a good head for business.'"

"Yeah, but which one?" Natsuki joked. Several pairs of eyes glared at her. The fifth head's weren't among them; it took advantage of the distraction to munch on the cookie bits.

"What does yours say, Natsuki?"

"I don't know." She broke the cookie open, then read, "'When you learn to be flexible, amazing opportunities reveal themselves.'"

"Oh, indeed?"

"Typical fortune-cookie logic. Um, Shizuru, why are you looking at me like that?"

"You read the cookie, Natsuki—'amazing opportunities.'"

"That doesn't expl—mmph!"

~X X X ~

"Natsuki, you're sitting out swimming in P.E.?" Mai asked in surprise. "I thought that was your favorite. Are you coming down with something?"

"No; I think I might have pulled something in my shoulder. It's kind of sore, so I didn't want to take a chance."

"Oh? Too bad. How'd that happen?"

"I was learning to be flexible," Natsuki murmured, blushing.

"Huh?"

"Um...let's just say that Shizuru believes in fortunes," she said, and stubbornly refused to give Mai any further details.

~X X X~

_A/N: This omake was actually inspired by real-life events. My wife and I had gotten Chinese take-out, and her fortune cookie had, word-for-word, Natsuki's fortune on it. Since I'm pretty much the Shizuru in our relationship, I immediately went where Shizuru did. ^_-_


	25. A Misty Road to Stardom

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"Hey!"

Natsuki Kuga kept walking at a swift pace. Winter, after all, was not her favorite season, and she had no desire to be out with Jack Frost nipping at her nose when she could be back in a heated house (albeit with Shizuru Fujino nipping at her earlobes). And maybe, the caller might be shouting at somebody else.

"Hey, hey, Kuga! Wait up!"

_Blast, she _is_ calling me._

Two years ago, Natsuki might just have kept walking, making the person chasing her have to try and catch up. But that was the old Natsuki, the Natsuki who'd been the lone wolf, the ice princess, not the Natsuki who was taking her girlfriend's hydra for a slither around the block because said girlfriend was buried in term papers.

This Natsuki sighed, cursed under her breath, and stopped.

A moment later, Chie Harada came running up, screeched to a stop, and bent over, panting for breath while bracing her hands on her knees. Chie was one of Mai's friends, a friend once removed as it were, and a handsome, dark-haired girl with glasses. Less attractively, she was an inveterate gossip, although a good-natured one.

Natsuki tapped her foot on the snowy sidewalk. Kiyohime's sixth head glanced up at her curiously.

"Oh"—_gasp—_"man, that"—_wheeze—_"is just"—_huff—_"so cute!" Chie got out, looking at Kiyohime. The hydra preened; she was wearing a hand-knit red pet sweater decorated with Christmas trees that Shizuru's grandmother had given her the previous year.

"Ohhh-kay, yes, I agree, and now that you've run yourself out of breath catching up to say that, we'll be going..."

"No, no, that isn't it! I mean, it's part of it, but not really it."

"I think you've been hanging around Mai too much, Harada. Mikoto's starting to rub off on you."

Chie shot her a look, which actually enheartened Natsuki; if the other girl could be irked by Natsuki's snarkiness then it meant there was very likely a point to all of this.

"I _meant_, I needed to talk to you about Kiyohime."

"Shouldn't you be talking to Shizuru?"

Chie glanced around theatrically, noting the absence of Fujinos.

"Okay, point taken. What do you need?"

"It's for our winter project for the Film Club," she said. "We need her help with our movie."

All six of Kiyohime's heads perked up at that, fixing their attention on Chie and making eager little hissing sounds. Natsuki wondered if she was imagining herself slithering through a model of Tokyo as the new monster-movie icon.

"She seems willing enough."

"Oh, great! Mai said that Kiyohime could breathe out some kind of steam or something when she used to be big. Can she still do that?"

"Yeah, although it's not scalding hot any more, more like the steam off a hot shower."

Kiyohime's second head puffed a small cloud into the air by way of demonstration.

"No, no, that's perfect! See, we're doing 'Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,' so we need lots of foggy London streets, only we don't have the budget to rent a smoke machine. It would be really great if she could help us out!"

Kiyohime whimpered, heads drooping. Natsuki patted the nearest head.

"Hey, at least you'll be in the credits, even if it's only as a special effect."


	26. Not the Noises Shizuru Likes Hearing

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

_A/N: Thanks to my wife, Tarma Hartley, for making an offhanded remark about one of my other stories (Chapter 12 of "The Omake of the Godless Month," if you're curious) which in turn inspired this idea!_

~X X X~

"Natsuki," Shizuru Fujino whispered. Ordinarily, she would have paused to admire how cute her sleeping girlfriend looked, nestled into a tangle of pillows with a thread of drool trailing from the corner of her mouth, but situational urgency overrode leering, even for Shizuru. "Natsuki!" she hissed, shaking the dark-haired girl's shoulder.

Natsuki's eyelids fluttered, revealing very unfocused green eyes.

"Whajawan, Shi'ru..." she mumbled incoherently.

"Natsuki, wake up! I heard a noise from inside the house!"

The genuine concern in Shizuru's voice cut through Natsuki's drowsiness and snapped her awake.

"What?"

"I heard a noise!"

Natsuki sat up and glanced toward the foot of the bed. Duran was sleeping soundly, and while Natsuki tended to sleep like the dead she figured her dog had to have better hearing than Shizuru.

"It's probably nothing," Natsuki decided, and started to lay back down.

"Natsuki!" Shizuru yelped, clutching at her girlfriend's arm. "_Please!_"

Natsuki sighed. She really didn't think anything was wrong, but Shizuru was obviously genuinely worried.

"All right. I'll go take a look. Geez, though; we're both girls, so why do you always get to be the wife?"

Shizuru couldn't help but smile when Natsuki gave the lie to her complaint about gender roles by throwing back the covers, revealing the satin-and-lace merrywidow and silk stockings she'd worn to bed that night. Natsuki caught the look, then glanced down at herself and blushed. Lingerie collector that she was, she still didn't relish the idea of searching the house for prowlers wearing something out of an adult video.

Then she heard the noise too. A clinking sound, as if of rattling glass. Embarrassment and frustration vanished at once; she was instantly all business. She slipped out of bed and shook Duran awake (a hundred and fifty pounds of metal dog with built-in firearms being a very good burglar deterrent), regretting now that she'd never troubled to obtain a normal handgun after losing her HiME Elements. All the knives were in the kitchen except for her little Swiss Army pocketknife keychain...then her eyes fell on the field-hockey stick leaning against the wall in the corner. For the first time she was glad Headmistress Fumi had instituted the "everyone needs one semester of extracurricular activity to graduate" rule at the beginning of Natsuki's third year.

Club in hand, dog by her side, Natsuki crept soundlessly out of the bedroom and down the narrow hall. The clinking sound came again, and this time she could tell that it was coming from the kitchen. Her nerves at a fever pitch they hadn't been since the HiME Festival, she moved silently through the living room, avoiding the furniture by memory and reflex.

She could see a pale light coming from the kitchen door, then heard the clinking sound yet again, and she advanced cautiously, peering through the door. The light came from the refrigerator; the door was open and someone was rummaging through the bottles and packages.

"Kiyohime!" Natsuki yelped. Five of the hydra's heads drooped guiltily while the second head hissed at its misbehaving fellow-appendages. "The vet put you on a diet for good reasons, so quit trying to sneak food!"


	27. The Legend of the Mayo Fiend Lives

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"I'm hungry," Natsuki said aloud. Since the only ones there to hear her were Duran (industriously demolishing a chew-toy bone) and Kiyohime (napping on her pillow), her comment did not immediately produce outbursts of sympathy. This was the problem with her girlfriend and housemate spending so much time at the university in the evening this week working on her research project while Natsuki was stuck at home studying for exams. _Seriously, what good is it dating someone on a different educational level if you don't have different schedules? We ought to be able to take turns taking care of each other when one of us is busy!_

Deciding that the hunger problem wasn't going to solve itself, Natsuki pushed herself up from the low table and headed into the kitchen. Unfortunately, she soon realized that the lack of free time she and Shizuru had had over the past week had also led to a lack of shopping. Supplies were at critical levels; she was even out of instant meals. Luckily, there was still hope, since there was a nearly full tube of mayonnaise, Natsuki's favorite condiment. She wasn't a very good cook, but there was very little that she could screw up badly enough that mayo couldn't save. She'd set dinner on fire once and it had been still edible...marginally...with enough mayonnaise.

She was lucky enough to find one slice of bread, so she decided on an open-faced sandwich. Leftover take-out containers from the last couple of days provided a somewhat unique selection of toppings. _I hope Shizuru wasn't saving that half of her salmon patty for anything special,_ she thought nervously, before hunger won out over fear and she added it to the stack, then prepared to apply the mayo.

**R-RING!**

Natsuki nearly jumped out of her socks when the phone rang. Heart still pounding at the shock, she grabbed the handset from the cradle.

"What?" she snapped.

"Gee, nice to talk to you too, Natsuki."

"Mai! Um...sorry; I was making dinner and the phone startled me. Did you need something?"

"What, I can't call you up just to chat? Haven't you figured out how this 'friend' stuff is supposed to work yet?"

"Mai, it's been a really long day..."

"Okay, okay, I'll cut to the chase. Actually, I do need something: your body."

Dead silence reigned for about three seconds.

"I get more than enough of that from Shizuru, thanks."

"Not like that! Chie, Aoi, and I are throwing an after-exams karaoke party on Tuesday night and we want you to come! Bring Shizuru with you."

"Mai, I'm not a karaoke person, and—"

"Now, Natsuki, think of it like this. If you say yes, you get to hang out with your friends, have fun, stuff yourself with pizza, and make points with your girlfriend by asking _her_ out. On the other hand, if you say 'no' and word of the invitation _just happens_ to get around to her, Shizuru will tease, beg, and cajole you into going anyway, _and_ she'll make you sing the most embarrassing songs possible to punish you for trying to sneak out of it. Probably in costume. And then ask Chie to e-mail her the pictures."

"...I'll be there." Sometimes she wondered if Mai had been able to beat the Obsidian Prince because a giant, millennia-old, alien demon-thingy just fell way too short in its amount of comparative evil.

"Yay! Bye, Natsuki; be there at five-thirty. Oh, and don't worry about paying; Mikoto and I got Reito to agree to host it. Bye!"

"Bye, Mai." _Yep, definitely just not evil enough to keep up with her._ She set the phone back in the cradle, then turned back to her sandwich, only to realize that when the ringing phone had startled her, she'd accidentally clenched her fist on the mayo tube, forcibly squeezing half of its contents out onto the plate. Her open-faced sandwich was now completely buried in a sea of white. There was no way to even pick the thing up unless she wanted to get her hands covered in mayonnaise.

"This...is a problem."

She put the mayo tube away, deciding that this was why Western companies sold mayonnaise in jars instead of flexible plastic tubes. It wasn't just that she'd wasted half their supply of her favorite condiment, but ruined dinner and there just wasn't anything else in the house to eat. If only there was some way to...

_Wait. Western! Cutlery!_ She could cut the sandwich into bite-sized pieces! That would let her eat it without looking like she'd been playing in white finger-paints, and at least only have to eat the mayonnaise on top of each piece, clearing a little off the sides of each bite. _Overloaded_ with mayo she could deal with, so long as it wasn't literally swimming in the stuff. And a fork could impale each piece and keep all the loose bits together in ways chopsticks weren't quite built for.

She hunted around in the drawers and came up with a metal knife and fork that looked like they were part of a cutlery set. _Hm, I didn't know Shizuru ever served Western food. I'll have to ask her about that._ Natsuki grabbed the food and headed back out to the living room. The clink of cutlery, predictably, caused seven heads to peek up over the top of the table at her.

"Oh, come on, you two. I fed you both an hour ago."

Seven sets of eyes looked at her plaintively, as if protesting that dog kibble and canned hydra food were a violation of the Geneva Convention.

"No," Natsuki remained firm. Seven throats whimpered plaintively enough to melt the cruelest heart, but Natsuki was as stone. She'd been studying all day, she was hungry, and she wasn't going to be broken by a bunch of lying animals! "Nice try, guys."

Grumbling, Duran and Kiyohime settled back down to resume napping while Natsuki commenced cutting the former-sandwich-in-mayonnaise-sauce. The first couple of bites proved quite edible, and she felt proud of herself for reaching a workable solution. Smugly, she flicked her knife around the third mayo-drenched piece, removing some of the excess condiment, when the doorbell rang.

"Who is that at this hour?" she groused, but got up and headed to the door.

"Shizuru!"

"_Ara_, Natsuki seems happy to see me," the university student said, smiling happily at her girlfriend's enthusiasm.

"I wasn't expecting you for at least a couple of hours."

"We finished our project early. I must admit, Haruka's enthusiasm is a very useful thing when it comes to such matters."

"As long as you're there to keep her pointed in the right direction. Can I get some of those bags? Your arms must be killing you." Natsuki was already taking the stuffed plastic shopping bags out of Shizuru's hands; she'd had four in one and three in the other, which was why she'd rung the bell instead of using her key.

"Thank you; I figured that so long as I had some time I would pick up a few groceries, as we are almost out."

"I noticed," Natsuki agreed. Duran, who'd come out with her to see what was going on, poked his nose into a bag to check for his favorite dog biscuits. "So did he."

Meanwhile, back in the living room, Kiyohime's fifth head slowly raised itself over the edge of the table. Glancing out to the foyer to make sure the humans were otherwise occupied, it snuck towards Natsuki's unattended plate.

"Anyway, thanks for this, Shizuru," Natsuki said, lifting the bags slightly to indicate what she meant. "Once I'm done with exams we can take a proper shopping trip. Oh, speaking of after exams, we're going to Mai's karaoke party on Tuesday."

"We are?"

"Yes. She blackmailed me with you."

"_Ara, ara_, I did not know that Natsuki considered me a threat," she remarked, changing out of her shoes.

"If I'm going to play dress-up for you, I just prefer it to be in the privacy of our own bedroom," Natsuki quickly said, recognizing the tone and realizing how she'd put her foot in it this time. _Hey, I can learn!_

"There are certainly advantages to doing it that way," Shizuru agreed with a smile. "Perhaps Natsuki would like to demonstrate her argument further tonight?"

"Stepped right into that one, didn't I?" Natsuki muttered. She didn't actually mind, but she'd figured out by now that it was more fun for Shizuru if Natsuki pretended to have to be teased into it. "Okay, but no school uniforms! I don't even want to _think_ about school after all the studying I've done today."

Shizuru slipped her arms around Natsuki's waist.

"Don't worry," she said, almost purring. "I will be very sure to make certain Natsuki cannot think of school or anything else." She pressed a warm kiss against Natsuki's lips and the younger girl shivered, wondering just how it was that Shizuru had come to have such an effect on her. _Love, I suppose._

"Groceries. Fridge. Now," she managed to say. Shizuru giggled, and they went through into the living room on the way to the kitchen, only to suddenly stop.

Kiyohime was lying in a very strange posture. Her fifth head lay limply on the table, eyes spinning, forked tongue hanging out from its mouth, its scales a pale lavender instead of their usual bright purple. The other heads looked down at it, hissing in tones that sounded not so much like concern and more like "I told you so."

Mayonnaise smears around its muzzle and a missing piece of sandwich told the tale.

"I _told_ you you couldn't have any; it's your own damn fault," Natsuki was unsympathetic. The other five heads nodded firmly. Shizuru, however, looked from her hydra to the mayo-drenched plate and bit her knuckle nervously.

"Um, Natsuki, I think we really need to have a talk about your eating habits..."


	28. I Blame District One For This

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

The sound of barking echoed from outside the kitchen window. Natsuki sighed, walked over, and looked out. Sure enough, Duran was standing just behind the chain-link fence, his metal body gleaming in the winter sun, barking out towards the road.

Shizuru Fujino, seated at the breakfast table, sipped tea.

"Hey!" Natsuki called, slapping the window with the palm of her hand. Duran looked up towards her, then got a sheepish expression on his face and slunk away from the fence.

"Yeah, you'd better look embarrassed," Natsuki muttered under her breath.

"What has Duran gotten up to?" Shizuru asked.

"Oh, just his usual antics. Mr. Nomura is warming up his car for the morning drive."

"I thought that was not necessary with modern, fuel-injected vehicles?"

"Well, either he doesn't know that or he just wants to let the car get going so the heater is working by the time he gets behind the wheel. It really annoys Duran, though."

Shizuru tipped her head curiously to one side.

"Duran is sensitive about responsible car ownership?"

Natsuki grinned despite herself.

"Nah, he just has a thing about large, black luxury sedans. I think it reminds him of the cars those District One goons liked to drive around in, looking all Men-In-Black style. He seems to have realized that not all panel trucks are bad-guy vehicles, but as for a black Lexus or Infiniti or Mercedes or BMW, he just hates them."

She sat down at the table and picked up her coffee cup.

"I see. Well, he did fight very hard by your side for several years against their machinations, so I can understand his attitude. Even so, I would not want to provoke a feud with our neighbors."

Natsuki nodded, then slurped coffee.

"Yeah," she decided. "I may need to put him on a leash that doesn't let him reach around to the side of the house so that he can't see the car, at least for his morning outs. I hope it isn't necessary, but if he doesn't learn..."

~X X X~

Duran was worried.

His mistress hadn't seemed concerned about his alarm and so he had obediently backed off for a time. For a while he'd distracted himself by playing with Kiyohime; he liked the game where she'd tunnel around under the snow and he'd try to find her and dig her out. It was too bad, really, that they could only play it during winter, since their mistresses got very annoyed when either one of them would dig up the back yard.

The distraction, though, only worked for so long. The knowledge that, just across the street, one of _those cars_ was sitting and waiting inside that nice Mr. Nomura's open garage nagged at him. At least, it was too much for a dog to take. He went around to the side yard and looked out, only to see the car backing out of the driveway.

It was getting away!

Now, if Duran had been barking at it when it had driven off that would be one thing. A reasonable dog would conclude that it was his fierce threats that had scared it away. This was different! It was leaving on its own, which meant that it must have successfully completed its nefarious business across the street!

He couldn't allow that!

Duran crouched, almost like a runner in the starting blocks, then launched himself, snow blasting up on both sides as he charged through it towards the fence—and sprang! He was an excellent jumper, maybe not enough at his current size to go from the deck of a cabin cruiser to that of a ferry, but certainly enough to clear a four-foot fence! He landed on the other side and rushed towards the street, checking for oncoming traffic before turning into the lane behind the black sedan and starting to sprint.

~X X X~

The sound of two sharp explosions from outside jolted Natsuki and Shizuru in their seats, nearly causing them to spill their drinks.

"What was that?"

"Oh, geez," Natsuki answered, "please don't let that be what I think it is..."

They ran out the front door, an action that seemed popular in the suburb judging by the gathering crowd. Mr. Nomura's black sedan had fishtailed off the road, its rear end half-buried in Mrs. Akai's cedar hedge. As the women watched, Mr. Nomura shakily unfastened his seat belt and got out of the car, only to be enthusiastically greeted by Duran, who jumped up with paws on the man's shoulders, tail wagging happily while he licked the salaryman's face.

"_Ara_, it seems that Duran believes he has rescued our neighbor from the evil car."

Natsuki growled.

"Well, he's going to find out how wrong he is. Blast it, it's bad enough to have a dog that chases cars, without him shooting out the tires so they don't get away!"


	29. Practice Makes Perfect

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Tokiha family pet)_

There was a knocking at the door of the dormitory apartment.

"I'll get it, Mai!" Mikoto caroled. She sprang over the back of her chair and scrambled to the door on her hands and knees in a split second, then bounced to her feet. She opened the door to the deliveryman.

"I've got a package for a Mai Tokiha?"

"Uh-huh! She lives here!" Mikoto exclaimed, then snatched the box and shut the door in the face of the bewildered driver. "Mai! You've got a package!"

"I do? I'm not—oh! That's for Kagutsuchi."

"It is?" Mikoto made a confused face.

The dragon-phoenix's ears twitched at the sound of his name. He stirred from his basket, then flew over to Mikoto.

"Can I open it?" she asked.

"Go ahead; just save me the packing slip so I'll have it for when I reconcile my accounts at the end of the month."

"Okay, Mai!"

Disdaining such civilized innovations such as utility knives, Mikoto dug her fingers under the box flaps and ripped the cardboard apart, dropping its contents onto the couch.

"It's a cassette tape. Um...'Whalesongs of the World'?"

"Uh-huh. It was only a hundred yen, since nobody wants cassettes these days."

Kagutsuchi stripped the cellophane off the cassette with his claws, then picked it up and flew back to his basket. Mikoto watched with interest as he extracted the tape from its case, inserted it into a Walkman, and got the headphones in place over his ears. He played the tape for a couple of seconds, then stopped it, lifted his head, and gave an echoing cry not unlike a whale's. He then rewound the tape a bit and hit "play" again. After a few seconds he stopped it again, then repeated the cry in a slightly different timbre.

"Mai, what's he doing?" Mikoto asked.

"Practicing."

"Practicing?"

"Sure. You don't think whale is his natural language, do you? He likes to listen to native speakers in order to make sure he has his pronunciation and diction right."


	30. Growing Up Takes Too Long

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Searrs family pet)_

Alyssa Searrs yawned. The real problem with a body that matured at a natural rate was that it got too tired too early. It was very difficult for her to manage the Searrs Foundation's operations in the Fuuka region of Japan with a 9:00 bedtime.

And social-studies homework.

"It's time to start getting ready for bed, my lady."

"I can stay up a little longer, Miyu," Alyssa pouted at her android companion.

"That wouldn't be good for your health," Miyu countered gently. "You know that you're prone to catching winter colds, and if you are over-tired it will compromise your immune system. Also, you have a teleconference with the Mumbai and Nairobi branch offices tomorrow scheduled for your lunch break and you would not want to offer them any advantage."

"But I'm not ti—" Alyssa's protest was cut off by another yawn. She gave up and sighed, reasoning that once again her body had sabotaged her mind's case. Miyu, at least, did not smirk, nor give any indication that she was aware of any humor in the situation. There were good reasons why Alyssa preferred the company of the android girl to other people. "Oh, all right."

She closed her books, then brushed her teeth and changed for bed. Miyu tucked her in, snugging the blankets up around her shoulders. She rested a cool hand on Alyssa's brow and gently stroked the girl's hair away from her forehead in soft, light caresses.

"Good night, my lady. Sleep well, and have happy dreams."

"Good night, Miyu."

The android walked to the door, switched off the lights, and left the dorm room. When she was gone, Alyssa spoke up.

"Artemis, acknowledge command authority."

_~beep?~_

"Rotate orbital angle twenty-seven degrees towards me. Activate laser transmission set for maximum dispersal/minimum beam cohesion, power output ten watts."

_~beep~_

The small, gold-colored satellite, currently maintaining a geosynchronous orbit three feet over Alyssa's desk, adjusted its angle of inclination so that Alyssa could see the barrel mouth of its cannon.

"Fire."

The tip of the cannon began to glow with a soft, golden light.

"Maintain continuous output until 6:05 a.m."

_~beep!~_

Alyssa closed her eyes, snuggled a bit into her pillow, and let sleep take her.

Outside in the hall, Miyu, having heard the entire exchange, commenced walking back to her own dorm. She would not mention this in the morning, since for some reason, despite Miyu's cultural data indicating that it was not an unusual event for children Alyssa's age, she did not wish Miyu to know that she preferred to sleep with a night-light.


	31. Give His Appearance a Lift

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"This festival is a lot nicer than last year's," Natsuki decided as she walked between the rows of booths.

"I do not recall Natsuki attending last year's Founders' Day Festival," her girlfriend observed.

"Yeah, that's my point. Last year, I was off doing fight-the-ancient-conspiracy stuff, and you were stuck meeting with major backers as the student council president. We never got to walk around together and, y'know, do stuff. Like eat." She stuck a takoyaki in her mouth to illustrate her point.

"I suppose that's true," Shizuru observed.

"And what kind of crazy school sends a kid to negotiate with its financial supporters, anyway?" Natsuki wondered. "Not that you didn't do a good job, but it's silly that Mashiro asked you to do it in the first place. Of course, it's not like she was really a headmaster, either, in that sense."

"True." Shizuru paused to think. "I do not envy this year's student council, though. Many of the school's backers were actually secondary members of District One, providing financial support because the school was an important part of their plans. With the organization no longer in place, they no longer have a reason to continue their donations."

"Actually, I think Mashiro, Reito, and Mr. Sakomizu arranged to pilfer District One's operating budget during the week after the HiME Star was destroyed. A few surplus billions helped make up the shortfall quite nicely. Blast, I'm out of takoyaki." She tossed the empty box into a garbage can. "Do you see a hot dog stand anywhere, or is it all Japanese food?"

They looked around at the row of booths. Kiyohime seemed very interested in a goldfish-scooping game, all six heads peering intently through the sides of the tank.

"That's not a sashimi stall, Kiyohime," Natsuki told the hydra. "Those are for kids to catch and take home as pets."

Kiyohime's first head gave her an inquisitive look.

"No, I don't know why anyone would keep seafood as a pet, either."

The hydra flexed her heads in a kind of shrug and slithered along, confused by the mysterious ways of humans.

"Perhaps Natsuki should worry more about Duran?" Shizuru suggested.

"Why? He's being a good boy." The biker wasn't even being defensive; Duran hadn't gotten in trouble once. He hadn't even so much as tried to take a bite out of the cotton candy.

On the other hand, she had to admit that some people were giving the massive steel wolf a wide berth. As Duran sniffed the air for the scent of hot dogs, one mother even ushered her toddler behind her, away from him.

"I don't get it. He's a perfectly nice dog. He's not even a vicious breed or anything!"

"Some people no doubt consider large-caliber firearms on an animal to be intimidating," Shizuru observed.

"That doesn't even make sense. I mean, how much gun crime is committed by pets, anyway? Not a lot, I'll guess!" Natsuki somewhat incoherently defended him.

"It's the way of the world," noted Shizuru dispassionately. "Why, some mean people talk about Kiyohime like she's a snake!"

The hydra's fourth head hissed indignantly.

"I suppose you're right. And guns don't really suit the festival atmosphere," Natsuki admitted. "But it's not his fault. I mean, he can't just take them off."

"_Ara_, that is a problem."

One of Kiyohime's heads tugged on the hem of Natsuki's skirt.

"What is it?"

The hydra pointed all six heads in the direction of a vendor.

"That's a good idea. Duran! Here, boy!"

He came bounding up to Natsuki and they went over to the balloon seller. Natsuki bought a couple of helium-filled mylar balloons, one with a big smiley face and one with a pink heart, and tied one to the barrel of each of Duran's rifles.

Shizuru giggled.

"He looks very cute that way, Natsuki."

Kiyohime's second head gave Natsuki a questioning hiss.

"No, you can't have a goldfish. But I'll buy you some grilled squid if we can ever find where they're selling it."

The offer appeared to suit her. At the very least, Natsuki had never seen the hydra hum while she slithered along before.

~X X X~

_A/N: This story was an entry for the Carnival of Muses at Mai Universe (the February-March prompt was "balloons")._


	32. When the Paleontologists Cry

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Midori Sugiura eyed the shelf of rock with a critical eye.

"No, not there!" she called out. "We're trying to fracture that section off and expose the interior of the cliff face. If you blast there, you'll risk damaging the main body of the mesa and the specimen we're trying to reach!"

The student who was placing the charge stopped before connecting the detonator to the explosives.

"Well, you said to put it at the top of the split, here," he protested.

_Had she?_ Midori thought. She wasn't _always_ as precise as she'd like, after all. No, she decided on further reflection, this one wasn't her fault.

"Yes, but not that far in! Over there," she said, and pointed to a spot about fifty feet away, "where those two fractures meet. If we use the natural forces at work on the rocks, we can save weeks of hard work in a couple of minutes!"

The student looked at her dubiously.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, ma'am? Shouldn't we check with Professor Sasaki first?"

"Of course it's a good idea! You do want to see this dig produce results _before_ the next term starts at university, don't you? When the professor gets back from town, we'll have the greatest discovery in paleontological history ready for him!"

"Whatever you say, ma'am," he sighed.

"And stop calling me ma'am! Do you think you're young enough to be calling a seventeen-year-old 'ma'am'?"

"No, I'm definitely not...ma'am."

Midori ground her teeth together and was about to offer her opinion of mouthy, wiseacre kids when something else caught her attention.

"Aaagh! Naoko, not that end! Haven't you ever hooked up a blasting cap before? Whatever happened to the days when student radicals practiced for blowing up the administration buildings until they could build bombs in their sleep before getting too stoned to remember where they left the fertilizer?"

Thirty minutes later, though, they were all back on the desert floor, well away from the mesa. The dynamite had all been prepared to Midori's satisfaction and the wireless detonator was ready to send its signal.

"This is what you've all been waiting for, boys and girls!" she crowed. "On the count of three: one...two..."

Midori's phone ruined the moment by commencing to play "Here Comes the Bride." Since that was her ringtone for Professor Sasaki (who considered her a fine graduate student and his first choice to go blazing into some archaeological site alongside him in defiance of local warlords, drug-runners, or terrorists, but as yet stubbornly refused to dance the horizontal mambo with her), she said a few things in Arabic that would have mortally offended the Professor's camel and answered the phone.

"Yes, Professor?"

"Midori, I just wanted to let you know that we'll be back with the supplies in half an hour. How are things at the camp?"

"Oh, it's going great! We got all of the charges set, and I'm at least eighty percent certain it'll work just like I drew it up. Though seriously, I don't know what they're teaching kids these days. Most of them get positively nervous around dynamite!"

"Dynamite! Charges! Midori, what are you _doing_?"

"Getting ready to break off the cliff face, of course, just like we went over last night. Did you have too many beers? It's like I always tell Youko, it's one thing to be hung over but when you start having memory loss it's time to cut back on the booze, seriously."

"I remember it very clearly! I remember telling you that it was a bad idea! That it was probably illegal under U.S. law! That we shouldn't do it under any circumstances!"

Midori had to hold the phone slightly away from her ear due to all the yelling.

"Yeah, yeah, I remember. Sort of. But seriously, Professor, that temper of yours isn't safe. You could be looking at a heart attack if you're not careful. I figure it's sexual frustration; it's been way too long since you last took a tight, toned grad student out for a little ride and—"

"Midori! If you don't get those charges unhooked right now—"

She'd later argue that it was completely his fault. If he hadn't called her at an inopportune moment she wouldn't have had to tuck the detonator under her arm to answer the phone. And if he hadn't startled her by bellowing, she'd never have flinched and reflexively squeezed her arm against her body.

Midori watched the two-hundred-foot-high cliff face slowly cascade down, crumpling under its own weight like a pretty girl's dress sliding to the floor (and really, it was his fault, too, that she kept thinking in metaphors like that one).

"Um...it's kind of too late for that?" she volunteered. "Look, I've got to go. See you when you get back, sweetie!"

She hung up the phone and shoved it back in her pocket.

"Really, it's not like the time I fired that RPG at those guys from the Foreign Legion," she muttered. "He has no sense of proportion."

The students who, prior to the explosion, had been hanging on every word of the commotion, were no longer listening. They were staring out at the mesa as the desert winds whipped the dust clouds away, revealing what had lain underneath the fallen rock.

"W-what is that?" mumbled the mouthy kid, binoculars at his eyes. Midori lifted the field glasses she wore on a strap around her neck and looked for herself.

There it was.

The cliff had started to fracture where the fossil had been embedded in the rock. Possibly it had been the fossil itself that started the split; geology was not Midori's strong suit so she didn't know. Either way, the explosion had cleanly knocked off the rock cover and she was staring at a flawless skeleton; at the bony-plated legless body; the long, whiplike tail; the articulated necks rearing up thirty feet or more; the six skulls with their fin-like bone crests.

She let out a loud war whoop.

"Woohoo! I told him! I told him it was there! Look at that, an absolutely perfect specimen! The ultimate apex predator of the late Cretaceous, _Lernaeasaurus Regina_!"

~X X X~

Shizuru was lifting her teacup to her lips with her customary grace and elegance when Kiyohime's six heads shot bolt upright and six throats emitted loud hissing squeals. Startled, the brunette fumbled her cup and splashed four fluid ounces of her favorite beverage down the front of her cream-colored shirt.

"Kiyohime, what's wrong?" She sprang off the sofa and knelt by the hydra, who was quivering, six pairs of frightened eyes wide and staring. She scooped Kiyohime into her arms and hugged her close, gently stroking along the length of her necks. "It was a only a bad dream, girl, just a bad dream."

Shizuru looked back over her shoulder at her girlfriend.

"This is your fault, giving her that leftover pizza before her bedtime."

"I thought she liked pizza!" Natsuki protested.

"Yes, but with pepperoni, sausage, onion, garlic, anchovies, jalapeno, and black olives?"

Natsuki looked over at Duran.

"This is the last time I let you pick the toppings."

~X X X~

_A/N: This omake was done for the Mai Universe Carnival of MUses, for which the March/April prompts were "dinosaurs" and "sleep"; I chose to use both in the story. The title is based on the TV Tropes trope for misuse of dinosaurs in media, "Somewhere a Paleontologist is Crying," and of course the translation of the title for Higurashi. As for Kiyohime's Latin genus/species name, it's a reference to the Labors of Hercules..._


	33. Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Soap

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

~X X X~

_The wind howled between the masts, whipping the tattered shreds of canvas like streamers and making the torrential downpour fly almost horizontally. The _Revenge _shuddered as a massive wave struck its side, sluicing water over the deck and nearly making the ship capsize, until at last it heeled back upright._

_"It do be the' curse, Cap'n!" screamed the pirate. "We should never have sacked th' convent!"_

_"Damn yer eyes, Fitzhugh!" bellowed the titanic figure at the helm. His bicorn hat had been knocked from his head by the tempest, which just made him look more like the creature of Hell popular legend painted him, his blood-red hair like a wild animal's mane to match his beard. "That reliquary do carry the key ter the lost treasure o' El Dorado, and I'll not be givin' it up fer man or God!"_

_"We've got to, Cap'n! This storm do be the wrath o' God!"_

_"Throw th' box inter the sea, now, else we be dragged down ter Davy Jones' Locker!" shouted another crewman._

_"Never!" Bloodbeard howled. "Ahrrr, I've done hunted that treasure fer a dozen years afore now, an' I'll not be givin' it up!"_

_"It do be nothing but a watery grave as awaits us, Cap'n!"_

_"Iffin ye mutinous curs don't stow yer gab this moment, I'll be carvin' yer cowardly guts from yer bellies!" He ripped his cutlass from its sheath and shook it at the men. "No word o' God or curse o' th' Devil'll be keepin' me from—"_

_He never finished the sentence. The screams of the crew drowned Bloodbeard out as six great serpentine heads, each a hundred feet high, burst from the sea around the _Revenge._ Snakelike jaws fastened on masts, spars, the rail, anywhere they could find purchase, and as the cutthroats screamed for mercy, the ship was inexorably dragged beneath the waves. And as the tattered black flag that had fluttered at the mainmast descended below the surface, the wind stilled, the clouds parted, and the moon looked down on a sea that was as still and calm as glass._

"Okay, Kiyohime, it's time to wash you now," Shizuru said. As she squirted liquid soap onto a cloth and worked up a lather, Kiyohime's heads popped back up from under the water and she set her rubber pirate ship bath toy on the side of the tub.

"Pirates and sea monsters?" Natsuki asked from where she was leaning against the doorjamb.

"_Ara_, given how many pet owners have such trouble at bath time, isn't it better to make the experience fun for her?" Shizuru began to scrub Kiyohime's first head. It arched against the washcloth, evidently enjoying the attention.

"Hey, it's not Duran's fault he doesn't like the wire brush on his rusty spots," Natsuki defended her dog. "And the wax itches."

"Perhaps you should change brands. Kiyohime didn't like the lavender-scented body wash, after all. It made her sneeze."

"Maybe I should. So why all the stuff about the heinous crimes they committed in the story?"

"Natsuki, you don't think Kiyohime would drag a shipload of people down to a watery grave if they didn't richly deserve it, do you?" Six purple heads looked at the biker, offended.

"So she likes to play a heroic sea monster, huh?" Natsuki thought that one over.

"Of course!"

"Ah, well, I can't complain." She grinned at her girlfriend. "After all, I got to hear the elegant and graceful Shizuru Fujino talk like a pirate."

"_Ara, ara,_ I did not expect Natsuki to be enchanted by such things."

"It's cute. It's so not like you."

"Ahrrr, then mayhap, seein's as how yer do find it appealin', as soon as I be done here I'll have ter go about plunderin' meself a little booty."

Natsuki laughed.

"Okay, now _that_ sounded like you."


	34. In Durance Vile

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

_A/N: This short was done for the Mai Universe August 15-September 15 "Carnival of Muses," for which one of the prompts was "jail." The other prompt was "thongs/flipflops," but I already wrote one lemon in August and anything with the words "Shizuru" and "thong" in it would inevitably head in that direction. ^_-_

~X X X~

Duran whimpered plaintively.

He didn't _understand_.

He pushed his nose for the umpteenth time against the cold, unyielding steel bars. They did not bend.

Duran knew something that could bend them. An armor-piercing Chrome Cartridge would cut right through them. He could fire through the lock, sever the bolts holding him in this prison, and he would be free!

Well, he could if his jailers hadn't known that fact and carefully stripped him of all ammunition.

He whimpered again.

It wasn't fair! He'd been a good dog. He hadn't chased cars or cats or dug holes in the garden or fired his guns at something he wasn't supposed to or ate a steak that had been left out for defrosting (at least not since the last time) or came bounding into the bedroom and jumped on the bed because Shizuru was making Natsuki yell again and he thought she needed rescuing (because Kiyohime always hissed at him as a warning whenever he forgot and was going to go do that).

So why was he here?

He scraped his paw over the bars. His metal toes rattled against them like a prisoner banging a tin cup against his cell.

It wasn't fair at all!

Overcome by resentment and loneliness, he tipped his head back and let out all his confusion in a long, plaintive howl.

Suddenly, he felt motion. Of course, he'd actually felt it for a while now, but now it felt like his cell was steadily descending! It was as if an earthquake had struck and sent him sliding down, down into the bowels of the earth, into the depths of a Hell that was little bleaker than the prospect of his imprisonment.

Suddenly, the descent stopped. There was a rattle of metal.

His ears perked up. Keys! Keys in the lock! The sound made him pay attention to what his nose was telling him. It was Natsuki! And Shizuru! And even Kiyohime! The bolts slid back, unlocking his cell. He lunged forward at once, shoving the door open. He collided with something soft—Natsuki! It was Natsuki, come to save him! Duran pounced as she tumbled to the tile floor beneath him, eagerly licking her face.

"Ack! Gah! Duran, stop drooling on me! Geez, why do you always have to make such a big production out of it when we travel and you have to go in your doggy crate?"


	35. True Friends Will Always Lend a Leaf

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kikukawa family houseplant)_

The two women caused heads to turn as they walked through the dormitory lobby.

They looked very similar to one another: blonde hair; strong, confident expressions; busty figures; bold, striding walks. Though one was an eighteen-year-old college freshman and the other twenty-five years older, the similarities far outweighed the differences.

Particularly in voice.

"I'm still not certain that this is the best decision for you, living in the dormitory."

"I thought we discussed this already, Mother. A Suzushiro has to earn her money by her own merits. How can I be expected to lead if I use my parents' wealth to escape the challenges of education?"

"That's certainly true," the older woman said, "and your father and I agreed with you. What kind of example would you set for the other students if you relied on our family's money to live in a comfortable apartment away from your classmates?"

"A quieter one?" a boy sitting in the TV lounge joked to his friends. The other two freshmen snickered, and two blonde heads swiveled towards them with steel in their eyes even though there was no rational way they could have actually heard what was said. The three boys developed an intense interest in the television, and the righteous wrath of Haruka Suzushiro and her mother passed them by. This time.

Ordinarily, Haruka would have walked up the stairs to her fourth-floor room; she did it constantly to keep up her leg strength. Since her mother was her guest, though, she pressed the button to call for the elevator.

"Even so," Mrs. Suzushiro continued on her theme, "we must remember that it's your education that's the most important thing. Looking out for the well-being of your fellow students and practicing for assuming a leadership role are also important, but not if they interfere with your ability to learn."

The elevator doors swished open and the women stepped inside. Haruka selected her floor and they started to rise.

"What do you mean, Mother?"

"The environment."

She gestured around herself; Haruka assumed she meant the whole dormitory and not just the elevator.

"Loud music, drinking or worse, shouting, crashing, to say nothing of slovenly personal habits and a rejection of personal responsibility. There is a complete lack of proper discipline here, and I fear for what it might do to you."

"I'm ranked second in my class, Mother; that's actually better than I did in high school."

"I know, and that's why we haven't objected. But as parents, we can't help but be afraid of the possible consequences. Can you properly concentrate on your studies in such an environment?"

"Of course! Do you think I'm so teak-minded as to be distracted by little things like that?" She was still laughing brazenly when the door opened. They walked down the hall, and Mrs. Suzushiro couldn't help but be less than impressed by what she saw. A discarded pizza box sat outside one door, another door was all but vibrating from the bass output of the music coming from the other side, a pair of underwear was knotted around a doorknob, and there was a large, wet stain from a spilled beer on the hall carpet. Haruka stopped at her own room and knocked.

"Come in!"

They went inside. Unlike the chaos outside, Haruka's dormitory room was spotless. The two beds were made, the bookshelves orderly, the open closets showed clothes and shoes in orderly rows, and the only thing on the floor was a rug. One desk was cluttered with papers, but that was because a freckled, short-haired brunette with glasses was working at it.

"Yukino," Mrs. Suzushiro said in surprise. "I hadn't expected to see you here." Haruka's best friend and sidekick, Yukino Kikukawa, was a second-year in high school, so lived in a different set of dorms.

Yukino rose politely.

"Haruka was going to help me with my statistics homework, Mrs. Suzushiro."

"Ah, good! Well, then, I'd better let you girls get to it, especially since I can see that my worries were unfounded. You should come home this weekend, Haruka, and bring Yukino. We're having a party to celebrate your cousin Yuji's engagement."

"I'll try to make the time. Thanks for stomping by, Mother."

"It's 'stopping,' Haruka."

Mother and daughter hugged, and then the elder Suzushiro left. Haruka let out a big sigh.

"That was close. Thanks, Yukino!"

"We were glad to help. Now?"

"Hm...maybe wait a couple of minutes in case she forgot something."

Mrs. Suzushiro didn't return, though, and Yukino said, "All right, Diana, you can let it go." The air seemed to shiver, and a half-dozen flower-like spores fluttered to the ground. The illusion dropped, and the room was revealed for what it was: posters of underdressed guys on the walls, wastebaskets filled just short of overflowing, beds a tousled mess, and clothes strewn everywhere. Haruka's roomate's lamp was half-covered by a pair of tights, and Haruka had to move a cricket bat and the remains of lunch out of the way before she could drop onto her own bed.

"I owe you, big-time," she told Yukino. "If Mom had seen this sty like it really is, she'd have lost it completely. Did it ever occur to her that getting a chance to relax is _why_ my grades have gotten better? If it wasn't for that bubuzuke woman, Shizuru Fujino..."

"Haruka, remember, relax," Yukino chided gently, and Haruka sighed again.

"Right. Relax. Anyway, thanks to you, that's one thing I'm saved from for now."

"It was all Diana's doing." Yukino gently stroked the fronds of the potted plant sitting on the desk and the vines wriggled happily.

"I guess it's true what Mom's home destruction magazines say."

"It's 'decoration,' Haruka. Anyway, what do they say?"

"A houseplant can really make a room look better."


	36. Natsuki Prefers the Original, Thank You

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"And so I guess that the problem with Reito is that while I feel like he really understands me and my feelings, I don't always trust him, as if he might use that knowledge against me someday," Mai Tokiha said as she removed her shoes.

She and Natsuki Kuga walked into the front room of the house Natsuki shared with her girlfriend Shizuru Fujino. The gleaming steel dog stood up from his rug at the sight of a guest.

"Hey, boy!" Natsuki greeted him.

"Hi, Duran," Mai echoed. Duran turned and bounded towards the back of the house. Mai looked at Natsuki in confusion. "Doesn't he like me?"

"I don't think that's quite it. Can I get you something to drink?"

"That's all right; I'm good."

"Okay."

They walked into the living room and Natsuki sprawled onto the couch, leaving the armchair for Mai. The redhead settled herself.

"You were saying how you don't trust Kanzaki?"

Mai nodded.

"He's so impenetrable sometimes. I never really know what he's thinking. He's a lot like the Kaichou that way."

Natsuki shook her head.

"No, that's not it. I mean, yeah, Shizuru's great at keeping stuff to herself and putting on that fake smile so no one knows there's something else going on. Half the time I have _no_ clue what's going on with her."

"That's Reito, all right."

"No, it's not."

Mai felt something poke against her hand where it was dangling over the side of the chair. She looked over and saw six pairs of eyes looking eagerly back up at her.

"Does Kiyohime want something?"

"Probably to snuggle," Natsuki said.

Six snakelike heads bobbed up and down.

"Okay, come on, girl," Mai invited. The hydra slithered around to the front of the chair and Mai bent over and helped her into the seat. Kiyohime squirmed a bit, nesting up in Mai's lap. Reflexively, as one does when there's a pet in one's lap, Mai let her fingertips stroke down the back of the closest neck, the third, she thought. That head let out a little purring noise. "Now, why isn't that like Reito?" she got back on topic.

"Because I can trust Shizuru. I mean, she's sneaky and likes to surprise me and tease me and she's a complete perv if I give her half a chance...or even if I don't...but I know she'd never betray me, and that I can absolutely count on her if things get serious."

"Oh, I see." Mai nodded. "Yeah, you're right. That's what I _wished_ I felt towards Reito. Maybe it's because of what happened when he was possessed by the Obsidian Prince, but I think it's just because of who he is. I mean, he makes me feel like I'm the most special, most adored girl in the world, but then I'll get this twinge where I don't know if he's doing it because he feels that way or if he's just playing a game with me or he just can't take the idea of a girl picking another guy over him."

"Like if, as soon as you decided to stop juggling and take him over Tate, he'd be satisfied and lose interest in you?"

Mai nodded.

"Exactly."

"Well, what about Tate?"

Several of Kiyohime's heads had curled around Mai's left forearm, squeezing and relaxing in snaky snuggles.

"Yuuichi is the other way around," Mai sighed. "I mean, I know I can trust him—just look at what he did during the Festival!"

"Plus he's pretty transparent, anyway."

"Yeah, he is," Mai said with a smile. "But he can be such an idiot! You know how I said I was afraid Reito would use what he knew about me against me? I don't have that problem with Yuuichi because most of the time he doesn't have a clue!"

Natsuki considered this. It was true that Tate had a bad case of "guy," misreading the signals Mai was sending out or missing them altogether. You only had to look at how he'd totally fumbled his relationship with Shiho to see how he could botch stuff. Arguably he was even worse than Natsuki herself, which was saying a lot.

_Hm, if Kanzaki reminds me of Shizuru and Tate reminds me of me, maybe they ought to be dating each other?_ Not that that would make anyone involved happy except maybe Aoi and Yukino.

"So basically, you either need to get inside Kanzaki's head or educate Tate."

"Yeah. Except...part of why I like them is that they are who they are. I mean, the Kaichou's teasing bothers and embarrasses you, but you wouldn't want her to quit, right?"

"No, probably not," Natsuki admitted. "Though she could work on her timing...but yeah, while we're still feeling out the boundaries for some things, Shizuru is Shizuru."

"But on the other hand, there's a difference between 'improve' and 'change,' right? Some gray area?"

"Maybe. I'm not really an expert here. I've had one relationship my entire life."

"And it's very annoying that you did it right the first time, but I'm keeping you as a friend in spite of that," Mai said archly. Natsuki would probably have had some rejoinder to that, but was interrupted when Duran bounded back into the room.

Well, not "bounded." More like "minced."

His walking was hampered because he had gotten himself wrapped up in Natsuki's heavy blue winter bathrobe, even managing to tuck it under his cannons instead of draping it over them. His slow movement was very likely to keep from stepping on the trailing hem. Duran made his way over to Mai and nudged her arm.

"Um, Natsuki, what is he doing?"

"Inferiority complex."

"Huh?"

"Well, he's made out of metal, and some people don't think that's very cuddly." Natsuki's scowl expressed her confusion and dislike towards such an attitude. "So he figured you'll be more likely to pet him if he wears something soft and fuzzy."

Duran woofed.

"Thanks for the object lesson, Duran," Mai said. "I'm _definitely_ not going to try to change Reito or Yuuichi."


	37. Find Motivation in Maid Fu

**Duran-kun & Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Yuuki family pet)_

Julia eyed her latest work critically. The drider CHILD took pride in her web-building skills. It wasn't enough just to be pragmatic and catch as many houseflies as possible. A web had to be a work of art, aesthetically pleasing, each strand connected just so to catch the light. An outdoor web could be bedecked with morning dew, but an indoor web required more skill.

The knock at the dorm-room door jolted her concentration. Startled, she jerked back and found herself toppling off her back four legs, sitting down hard.

"Aoi! Door!" Julia's mistress, Nao, called helpfully.

Aoi Senoh stalked out of the bathroom, her hair frothy with shampoo suds; she'd obviously been washing it in the sink.

"Why can't you get up and get the door?" Aoi asked sharply. "You're all of six feet from it."

Nao shrugged from her prone position on the couch.

"You were already standing up," she pointed out. Aoi scowled. Really, Julia did not know how Nao put up with her roommate, who did not appreciate such self-evident logic. And Aoi insisted on doing things like washing dishes and taking out the garbage. How was Julia supposed to catch any flies if Aoi didn't even let them gather in the apartment? It was a good thing she only lost her patience with Nao's "pig-sty habits" every three or four days, or else Julia would have to suffer with store-bought food every day.

The knock was repeated. Aoi was so selfish, making their visitor wait just so she could argue with Nao!

"Were you going to get that? Since you came all the way out here and all that..."

Aoi yanked the door open.

"Who's—oh! Headmistress Fumi!" She stepped back. "Nao, it's for you," she called sweetly. She invited Fumi Himeno inside. "Um, Headmistress, if you don't need me, I'm going to..." She pointed to her head.

"Go on, it's all right," Fumi said in her high, sweet voice. Julia was not fooled. The pink-haired woman walked towards the couch. "I'm here to talk to Miss Yuuki."

Aoi vanished back into the bathroom. Julia kept a close eye on Fumi; the woman had, after all, been a rival HiME to Nao once, though they had never fought during the Festival.

Which was probably a good thing, Julia admitted to herself. Fighting was not what driders did best. That was best left to mutant squid and reptile-bird things that set themselves on fire, and giants who forgot to grow legs.

"I'm concerned about you, Nao," Fumi said. Nao displayed respect for the woman's position by putting her magazine down on the coffee table and looking up at her while she was talking. "Some of your teachers have told me that you are beginning to miss classes again."

"That is a problem. You've got to get those guys to stop being so boring so attendance doesn't drop. Besides, I'm keeping my grades up."

"Your test scores have been acceptable, but there is a concern that you could be slipping back into your old habits. That was one thing when your primary reason for being here was to play your part in the Festival, but now that you no longer possess your HiME powers..."

Julia squeaked indignantly. Just because she was only the size of a dinner plate instead of a large car with the HiME Star gone didn't mean that she should be ignored! Fumi's eyes flicked in her direction, then returned to Nao.

"...you should be taking your education seriously."

"Exactly where is all that concern coming from?" Nao said cynically. "Seriously, when did 'let's save Nao' become such a popular hobby? Between you and Sister and everybody else, I feel like the star of a Very Special Episode of some lame TV show."

"Well, I cannot speak for anyone else, but in my case I owe a debt to Lady Mashiro, both to look after the students at her school and to the recipients of the Kazahana Scholarship for whom she had special care. She did not spend three hundred years planning to defeat the Obsidian Prince and save this generation of HiME from our fate only to see one of us throw her future away simply to maintain the pretense of teenage rebellion."

Her hand flicked out in a sudden movement, grasping the broom that Aoi had left leaning in the corner after one of her cleaning expeditions. It snapped up like a scythe, the bristles driving into the heart of the spiderweb. A sudden spin of the broom-end sucked the web in like a tornado scooping up a Kansas house, and Julia found herself staring at the suddenly spotless corner of the room.

"Um...ah...er..." a gaping Nao stammered.

"Oh, my," Fumi said, pressing one hand to a blushing cheek in an embarrassed gesture. "It's so hard to forget one's old habits from being a maid." She put the broom back where she'd gotten it. "Now, Miss Yuuki, we were talking about your class attendance..."

"I...I'll make a real effort to show up, no matter how much of a yawn-fest it is," Nao said generously.

"Oh, good! I'm glad this little talk helped you to see how important your education is for your future."

"Especially my immediate future," Nao mumbled under her breath.

For her part, Julia decided that after proper reflection, the web really hadn't been up to her standards.


	38. Yes, That's How They Do It in America

**Duran-kun & Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"You want to tell me again why, exactly, I have to be here?"

Natsuki fixed Nao with a glare.

"_You're_ the one who convinced me that I ought to be embracing the 'true meaning of Christmas' and that since it originated as a Western, Christian holiday it's only proper to look to Western, Christian cultures for how to celebrate it. And since that means a lot more decorating, a lot more cooking, and a _whole_ lot more shopping, you get to help, _Sister_ Nao." Looking around the crowded department store, she muttered under her breath, "My plan was to just dress up in red lingerie and a Santa hat and let Shizuru have her way with me. It wouldn't have been any less work, but at least I could have stayed in a warm bed instead of running around in the cold and getting headlocked by an old lady over a cashmere sweater."

"Okay, one, I do not want to hear about your sex life and if you keep talking about it no power on Earth will keep me here. Two, I just said that stuff because I don't have a boyfriend what with the whole nun thing and I want to get some loot out of this holiday. Three, I have to admit, that headlock was pretty damn funny. I think she'd have bulldogged you if she had the open floor space. Lucky Kiyohime there bit her so you could make a run for it."

Kiyohime was currently slung in a backpack-style carrier and had startled a number of people who were expecting to see a baby's face, not a purple hydra's six snakelike heads. The sixth head looked particularly smug, as it had been the one doing the biting.

Natsuki did not look smug. Natsuki looked like the only thing keeping her from booting Nao down the escalator was the thought that beating up a nun, even a part-time nun, was a really good way to end up on Santa's "naughty" list.

"Why'd you bring her, anyway?" Nao asked. "It can't just have been for crowd control."

"She wants to get something for Shizuru, too. And besides, she might have some ideas for good gifts."

"Seven heads are better than one, eh?"

"Eight. You're not getting out of this that easily."

"Fine, but if you buy an aluminum Christmas tree, I am not taking any of the blame."

"Geez, I'm not _that_ hopeless."

"You just confessed to bringing a pet along to make gift suggestions."

Natsuki didn't really have a good comeback for that one.

"Whatever. Can we just—"

She was interrupted by Kiyohime's fourth head tugging on her earlobe.

"What is it?"

The other heads stretched out, pointing and hissing. Natsuki followed their gaze.

"Hey, that's not bad," Nao remarked. "The snake's got taste."

The fifth head hissed, annoyed to be called a snake, but since she was being complimented it wasn't very strident. Kiyohime had picked out a Christmas-themed Wedgewood tea set, with teapot, creamer, sugar bowl, cups, and saucers, white and trimmed with gilt and holly leaves like a wreath around the rims. It was perfect, particularly since Shizuru had been experimenting with various "Christmas" and "winter" blends of black tea for the past couple of weeks.

And then Natsuki's heart sank. Coming in from the other side was the same woman who'd gotten the cream-colored cashmere sweater that would have looked gorgeous on Shizuru.

"Damn it, not again!"

Kiyohime hissed angrily.

"What—oh. Uh oh."

"Nao, get over there and block her way."

"What? Why me? That lady's got shoulders like a linebacker, and it's your gift for your girlfriend we're talking about."

"One, this was all your idea. Two, you want to end up on my 'nice' list and get some of that loot you're hoping for. Three, with luck if she punches out a nun, even you, out of sheer avarice, maybe a lightning bolt will hit her and I'll get a free run at the tea set. And four, if we don't get that tea set, at this rate she'll just stalk us to the _next_ thing we find for Shizuru, because it seems like that's the only stuff she's after. Now get going!"

"Woof," Nao said dryly, but launched on an intercept course while Natsuki bolted for the tea set.

~X X X~

"Well, the good news is that you only appear to have a sprained knee," the doctor said. "There's no sign of any ligament tearing or structural damage."

"That's a relief," his elderly patient said. "I tell you, young people today have no respect for their elders."

"Oh? If you don't mind my asking, what happened?"

"I was out Christmas shopping, and I found the nicest tea set for my granddaughter, when suddenly a nun flung herself in my path, and when she fell down from the collision, she kicked me in the side of the knee so I lost my balance and fell, too. It was absolutely shocking! It's a good thing I'd already found a lovely cashmere sweater for her, but I did so want to get her something else, too."

"I'm sure any granddaughter of yours is a properly polite girl who'd appreciate whatever you wanted to give her, Mrs. Fujino."


	39. It's a Wonderful Life

_A/N: Dedicated to Tarma Hartley, my very own Natsuki. Merry Christmas, my love!_

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"Look, Daddy. Teacher says, 'Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.'"

"That's right, that's right. Atta boy, Clarence!"

The words were spoken in English, though Japanese characters were conveniently printed across the bottom of the TV screen, the yellow standing out against the old black-and-white American movie. Shizuru didn't need the subtitles, but Natsuki, who'd been the one actually ensconced on the couch watching, probably did; English was not her strongest subject, foreign languages being perhaps the least amenable to being learned while regularly skipping class.

Shizuru leaned over the back of the couch.

"Would Natsuki like a cup of hot cocoa?"

"What?" Natsuki blinked, her attention having been caught by the film. "Oh. Yeah, thanks, Shizuru."

Shizuru handed her girlfriend the steaming mug. When Natsuki shifted to reach for it, the movement caused her legs to shift. This woke up Duran, who'd been stretched out on the couch with his head in his mistress's lap. His head came up, and only Natsuki's quick reflexes prevented a nasty spill.

"Did you enjoy your movie?"

"Yeah, it was pretty good." She tried to make it sound like an offhand remark, but failed miserably. Especially when Duran leaned up and licked a tear off her face. "Gah!"

"Is there a reason Natsuki does not wish me to know that she finds holiday classics emotionally affecting?" Shizuru said, smiling broadly.

Natsuki gave her a look.

"You have to ask?"

Shizuru giggled.

"Is Natsuki trying to imply that I will tease her mercilessly about it?"

Natsuki gave her a long, cool glare.

"I wasn't aware that it needed to be _implied_. Stated straight out, known in my soul as a certainty the way I know the sun will rise in the morning..."

Shizuru rolled her eyes.

"Oh, Natsuki, I'm not _that_ bad. And the only reason it's fun to tease you about things is that you make such a big deal about them in the first place. If you'd simply admit that you _like_ sentimental old foreign movies, without making huffy noises and trying to deny it first, then I wouldn't have anything to tease you over."

She bent down and kissed Natsuki on top of her head.

"Tell the truth and shame the devil, you're saying?" Natsuki drawled.

"Oooh, a direct hit. A devil, am I? Well, see if you get any fruitcake."

"Fruitcake? We have fruitcake?" Natsuki's head popped up over the back of the couch like a jack-in-the-box.

"We have fresh-from-the-oven fruitcake."

"I didn't hear you go out. Man, I know I haven't had to fight off any ancient conspiracies for over a year and a half now, but I didn't think my awareness was so shot I'd miss the door opening and closing while you went in and out, or the simple fact that you weren't here for twenty minutes or so."

Shizuru found her heart melting all over again. Natsuki, she thought, didn't even have any idea that she'd said anything special, even though she'd just confessed that she was so awake to Shizuru's presence that even though they were doing completely separate things and Natsuki was engrossed in her movie, she'd have noticed if Shizuru hadn't been in the house. _Is it any wonder that I love her so much?_

"You'd have noticed, too, wouldn't you, boy?"

Duran woofed softly, agreeing that he'd certainly have heard the door, like any self-respecting watchdog.

"I didn't go out. It's fresh from _our_ oven."

Natsuki paled.

"Shizuru...you didn't bake it yourself, did you?"

For ordinary matters, Shizuru Fujino was an exceptional cook, particularly compared to Natsuki, whose culinary skills began and ended with pulling back the lid and pouring in boiling water to let stand for three minutes. For some reason, however, Shizuru's skills did not extend to cakes and pastries. Baked sweets were generally failures. Usually appalling failures that threatened to...

She supposed that she could have been offended by Natsuki's sudden horror, but her girlfriend's fear was rational. Every so often she herself still had nightmares about the impact velocity of blueberries.

"No, Natsuki, I didn't. All I did was help get out ingredients and occasionally open a lid."

"Then who—?"

On cue, six purple snake-heads leaned out around the side of the kitchen door, hissing. They were wearing puffy white chef's hats atop their finlike crests, though the third head had managed to get its nose stuck inside its as well.

"Since your birthday cake turned out so well this year, she wanted to try making something for you again."

"Kiyohime's homemade fruitcake?" Natsuki perked up at once. "In that case, I'll have a big slice!"

Shizuru smiled wickedly.

"Now, what should I make my Natsuki do to earn her treat?" she purred.

"Hey, if I'm gonna jump through hoops, it ought to be for the actual baker, not her kitchen help! Besides which, whatever happened to only teasing me because I 'make huffy noises and deny it first'? I've never claimed that fruitcake wasn't one of my favorite treats."

"That is true," Shizuru agreed, smiling broadly. "But...you _like fruitcake_, Natsuki. It isn't my fault that you've chosen to be open and shameless about the one habit you have that truly _is_ embarrassing!"

Natsuki nailed her in the face with a throw pillow.

~X X X~

_A/N: Which now makes two stories in which I've teased my wife about her liking for fruitcake, so obviously Shizuru is right. ^_^_


	40. Digging Her Way Into Trouble

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Fuka Shrine was a stately place, sincerely dedicated to Shinto worship and practices. This was in stark contrast to the Christian chapel on academy grounds, where the sincerity of devotion to God was regularly disrupted by such things as bioweapon research labs in the basement or robot nuns or choir girls with their own Kill Sat. The shrine was different. Things were taken seriously there (except when Shiho, serving as part-time miko, got distracted by her love life).

Therefore, seeing a snaking trail of turned-up dirt trace its way across the grassy hill was not a common event.

"I think I saw something like this in an American cartoon once," Reito Kanzaki mentioned to Shizuru Fujino as they descended from the shrine.

"Did you guys get your love charms?" Shiho said cheerily, meeting them on the steps.

"Yes, we did." Shizuru held up the slip of paper, inked with the charm blessed by the shrine's _kami_.

The drill-curled junior high student looked at her quizzically.

"Um, I understand why Reito would want a love charm to help him win Mai's heart." Shiho would happily have let him have it for free, since she definitely wanted Mai to choose Reito...or anyone else that wasn't Yuuichi Tate, for that matter. "But, Shizuru, you're happy with Natsuki, aren't you?" She bit her lip, suddenly afraid that she was blundering into something sensitive. Luckily, she wasn't.

"Yes, very much, but I'm planning to throw her a surprise party and I'm hoping she'll forgive me by bedtime."

"Personally," Reito changed the subject, "I was more curious about that." He nodded towards the dirt trail. "Won't that be hard for you to have to re-seed it all?"

"Oh, no. Actually, Grandpa wanted to put a garden in over there, so Kiyohime is actually helping by breaking up the soil."

Suddenly, the purple hydra burst up through the ground and lay limply on the earth. Several of her heads looked over towards the three students, who rushed over at once.

"What's wrong?" Shiho exclaimed. "She looks really sick!"

"Do we need to take her to the vet's?" Reito asked. "My car's parked just outside the gates."

"No," Shizuru mused, "I think I've seen this before." She pursed her lips thoughtfully, then gave Kiyohime a sharp smack on the back. With a low coughing sound, her central mouth opened and spat out a very confused vole. Her second head bent over and poked at it, prompting the scared rodent to scurry back into the hole.

"Kiyohime, we've talked before about what can happen when you burrow too fast."

Her sixth head gave a curious hiss.

"No, I don't think the vole would accept your tunneling a new den for him as an apology."

~X X X~

_A/N:_ _And I wanted to send a big thank-you to all of you, the readers, for helping to bring D&KOT! to over 100,000 hits! I hope you keep on enjoying these omake!_


	41. Hopefully Not Six More Weeks of This

_A/N: Happy Groundhog Day, everyone! While we all wait on the visual acuity of a large, fuzzy rodent to predict the weather, here's a little something to celebrate Natsuki's "favorite" season!_

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"This is Chie Harada, reporting live from in front of the Kuga-Fujino home in lovely residential Fuuka," the tall, spectacled girl said, holding her cell phone as if it were a microphone.

"You are such a goofball sometimes," Aoi told her. She received only an irrepressible grin in return, the armor of Chie's ego remaining undented.

"Ah, but you love it, don't you?"

Aoi was spared having to think up a reply when the front door of the house opened and Natsuki Kuga stepped out into the crisp February air. Of course, her wardrobe choices seemed designed to keep her _out_ of the crisp February air: thick pants, heavy boots, a puffy winter coat, a dark blue knitted scarf wound around her lower face, and a hat snugged close over her head, ear-flaps pulled down. Chie started to flip open her cell phone to get a picture, but the third girl in their little group, Mai Tokiha, put her hand on Chie's arm to stop her.

"Now, Chie, Natsuki's a friend. Life embarrasses her enough without us helping it along."

"Aw, c'mon, Mai, Fujino would pay through the nose for pics of Natsuki looking so cute!" She winked at Aoi. "Just think, dinner at _Maison Rouge_..."

"Just think, having to find someone else to take with you to _Maison Rouge_ because I'm in a snit over how you got the money to go out with." She smiled sweetly up at Chie, who laughed and flicked her phone back shut.

"Well, I can't beat that logic."

"Besides, if I know Fujino, she's not going to miss out on that opportunity on her own," Mai pointed out. As if to emphasize her point, there was a rumbling in the snow, and the six heads of Shizuru's hydra Kiyohime popped up from beneath the ground, the fourth and sixth heads holding a digital camera.

"Hey, wha—?" Natsuki yelped in surprise, freezing in mid-step on the front stairs. Kiyohime's fifth head watched the camera screen carefully while she lined up the shot and her second head pressed the shutter.

_Flash!_

Apparently the dimness of the overcast winter morning was enough to require extra light, or else some setting button on the camera had been bumped during its trip under the snow, because the flash went off. Natsuki was already off-balance from surprise, and, blinded, she missed the edge of the step when her foot came down. She windmilled desperately, but was already toppling forward. Kiyohime yanked her heads back as Natsuki faceplanted into the snow, nearly on top of her.

The other girls rushed forward through the snowy yard.

"Natsuki!"

"Kuga, are you okay?"

A muffled voice rose from the snow.

"...Just wake me when it's time for spring..."


	42. Nao Hop to It

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Yuuki family pet)_

As suited her part-arachnid nature, Julia the drider was generally a very patient creature, one who rarely got herself in trouble by acting hastily. However, everyone has her weaknesses, and new furnishings and fixtures in Nao Yuuki's room was Julia's. Almost as soon as the workmen had left, she scuttled up the wall and across the ceiling, and then set to work building a web on the new wood-and-brass addition.

Then Nemesis struck.

Aoi Senoh was Nao's roommate. Her relationship with Julia could best be described as "armed truce": Aoi found the drider to be very creepy, but Julia refrained from playing tricks on Aoi because Aoi wielded a lethal broom and in her present form Julia was only as wide across as a large dinner plate. Julia had a suspicion that given Aoi's irritating inclination towards _cleanliness_ that she was studying maid-fu under Headmistress Fumi.

This time, though, Aoi required no mystic arts to ruin Julia's day. She merely turned on the new switch the electrician had installed, which in turn activated the ceiling fan.

It was probably a good thing that Julia had been hanging from her web, not standing on the fan. If she'd been on the fan while it worked itself up to speed, she might have been flung across the room. Instead, the web was ripped to bits at once and she fell straight down to land on the sofa, dizzy but apparently unhurt.

"Eep! Sorry, Julia; I didn't know you were up there," Aoi apologized while no doubt snickering inwardly concerning her victory.

"What happened?" Nao asked, following Aoi into the room. Apparently they'd come back from class together despite being in different grades.

"I turned on the ceiling fan, and Julia fell."

Julia looked up at her mistress and whimpered. Surely Nao couldn't resist the cries of an innocent drider, rudely abused by a thoughtless roommate who ambushed her. Why, now that Julia thought about it, the ceiling fan had probably been installed as a trap!

Nao looked at Julia, her eyes widened, and she started laughing.

"Ha ha ha! Oh, man, look at her!"

This was not the response Julia was expecting. Startled, she glanced over herself. Everything seemed all right, arms, torso, legs...Then she glanced back over her shoulder and realized that she'd still been spinning when she fell, and the loose web, with nothing to attach to, had gotten scrunched up in a ball.

Aoi giggled at the damage she'd done.

"I didn't know they had cottontail driders!"

Nao snapped her fingers.

"You know, that gives me an idea."

"What?"

"Midori collects anime figures and stuff, right?"

"I think so..."

"Great! She's probably got a set of ears that'll be the right size for Julia."

Aoi gave Nao a strange look.

"Why do you want ears for Julia? And what kind of ears, anyway?"

"The church is holding an egg hunt for the elementary-division kids, and lucky me, I get to spend my Sunday setting up and supervising. So I'll bring Julia along and she can be our Easter bunny."

Aoi twitched.

"An eight-legged, web-spinning...bunny?"

"She hops, doesn't she? And besides, arachnids know lots more about eggs than rabbits do anyway."

Julia crossed her arms over her chest and sniffed in a self-satisfied manner.

"...I can't wait to see what you come up with for the flying reindeer at Christmas, Nao."


	43. Luck Be a Lady

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Natsuki Kuga leaned back in her chair and let out what could be called an elegant, ladylike belch. If the lady in question was a hippopotamus, that is. For a nineteen-year-old girl, the selected adjectives might be a little bit different. Duran woke up from his post-dinner nap at her feet and raised his head quizzically to see if the strange noise heralded anything that required him to bark at in his role as watchdog. Kiyohime, whose six heads were buried in four cartons of leftover Chinese take-out, volunteered her fifth head to do the same (probably as punishment for trying to scarf a dumpling off her mistress's plate earlier during supper). Shizuru Fujino, who generally thought that the sun rose and set on Natsuki, wrinkled her nose in distaste.

For her part, Natsuki crossed her arms over her chest, fixed Shizuru with a green-eyed gimlet stare, and pointed out which one of them had ordered the scallion pancakes _and_ the veggie dumplings knowing what onions did to Natsuki's digestion.

"_Ara, ara,_ but Natsuki did not have to eat quite so many of them."

"If you're going to tempt someone, then don't complain about the results if they give in," Natsuki said righteously.

"Very well, I will concede the point, but only because Natsuki has shown me such a good time today."

Natsuki sighed happily.

"It was a really fun day today, wasn't it?" They'd taken a long ride on Natsuki's Ducati into the hills, Shizuru's arms snugly around her waist the whole way, then climbed the twisting path up the hillside while the warm morning sun had spilled through the trees and made the leaves seem to glow a lush green from within, attended a tea ceremony at the school located at the top of the path, then rode into Tsukimori, ate lunch at Natsuki's favorite _yakitori_ bar, saw the matinee showing of the latest romance movie before spending two and a half hours at the aquarium (Shizuru especially liked the squid, which Natsuki supposed made sense) and picking up the food on the way back home. It was the kind of day Natsuki could never have imagined having before Shizuru had come into her life, not even meaning the date part of it, just the simple act of going off and spending the entire day having fun for its own sake.

"Hey, Kiyohime, would you toss me a fortune cookie?"

The hydra's fourth head grabbed one off the table and with a snap of its neck sent it sailing over to her; Natsuki snatched it out of the air and tore off the cellophane wrapper. Shizuru leaned forward, eyes sparkling.

"So what does the future hold for you?"

"Let's just see..." She broke open the cookie and extracted the slip of paper. Shizuru leaned over, resting her head on Natsuki's shoulder so she could read, too. Her sandy hair spilled down across Natsuki's chest and back, tickling the biker's skin through her thin T-shirt. "It says, 'Praise a fine day at night.'"

"Indeed?" Shizuru purred.

It took Natsuki a few seconds to make the implication that Shizuru had seen at once. She glanced at her girlfriend. who was staring at her with a look that could only be described as _avid_. Or maybe _rapacious_.

"And seeing as how it was a _very_ fine day, then we should give it a great deal of praise."

"N-now, Shizuru—"

Shizuru smiled brightly at her.

"As Natsuki just said a moment ago, 'if you're going to tempt someone, then don't complain about the results if they give in.'"

Natsuki blinked, then grinned at her girlfriend.

"Well, I can't argue with such an obviously wise philosopher," she said. Shizuru gave a surprised little squeak when Natsuki wrapped her arms around her waist and fell over sideways, pulling the college student down on top of her as they stretched out full-length on the couch.

Being Shizuru, though, she immediately found other ways to celebrate Natsuki's good fortune.

~X X X~

_A/N: Much like Chapter 24, Natsuki's fortune actually turned up in my cookie when we had Chinese take-out Thursday night. My inner Shizuru immediately demanded that it be made into a story._


	44. The Dog Days of Summer

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"Ahhhhhh," Natsuki Kuga gave a long, happy, contented sigh.

"You really are a summer princess, aren't you, Natsuki?" her friend Mai Tokiha asked.

"Oh, yeah. My name may not be spelled that way, but it definitely fits."

The two friends and high-school classmates were stretched out on folding lounge chairs in the backyard of the house Natsuki shared with Shizuru Fujino. The only thing that would make this day better would be if Shizuru was home instead of off at a late-afternoon workshop, but Natsuki figured the college student would be as happy to slather Natsuki in sunburn ointment later as she would be to rub in sunscreen now. It was the first really hot day of the summer, and the two friends were savoring the sun in tank tops and denim shorts, letting the breeze tickle their bare toes.

"You know, we ought to go on a beach trip with the whole gang this year," Mai decided. "After all, we'll graduate next spring, and a lot of us from this class will go our separate ways. Let's see, there's you, me, Yuuichi, Chie, Aoi, Yukino, Akane, Kazuya, and Miyu. I know Miyu isn't going to college..."

"She could just download it all anyway. Probably she has. Or has access to some giant Searrs database or something."

"...but Kazuya and Akane are going away, and Chie got accepted into a journalism program in Osaka. Yukino's the only one I know for sure is definitely going to stay here and attend Fuuka University."

"Me, too."

"Really?" Mai's smile turned into a suggestive grin. "Don't want to get too far away from your wife, huh?"

"Actually, we promised her mom that we'd hold off on any official commitment ceremony until we both at least finished off our undergraduate degrees. We'll just have to live together in sin until then. But mostly I'm just too lazy to take entrance exams so I'm letting the escalator system take me up without effort."

"I hate you," said Mai, whom Natsuki knew planned on applying to at least six different schools. "Just thinking about studying for exams makes me feel hot and sticky."

Suiting actions to words, Mai swung her feet over the side of the chair and plunged them into the blue plastic kiddy wading pool they'd set up between the lounges. Kiyohime, who'd been splashing around in the cold water, popped up several heads to see if anything interesting had caused the sudden intrusion. Her fifth head looked like it might be considering some judicious toe-nibbling, but the majority won out and Kiyohime went back to her swimming.

"You know, I'm surprised Kiyohime doesn't like the heat as much as you do," Mai said. "Aren't snakes and other reptiles most active on hot, sunny days?"

"I think that's for cold-blooded animals only. Kiyohime's warm-blooded."

"She is?"

"Yeah, remember how much she likes to play in the snow?"

"Oh, that's right. A cold-blooded animal would be all lethargic."

"I wonder if that means hydras are descended from dinosaurs?" Natsuki speculated. "Kiyohime might even be more closely related to birds than she is to snakes."

"I doubt there's a lot of books on hydra biology."

"True." Natsuki might have said more, but she felt something solid poke her in the ribs on the side away from Mai and the pool. She rolled over and came face-to-face with a large steel wolf with two built-in long-barreled rifles running along his flanks, giving her very hopeful puppy-dog eyes.

Natsuki checked her watch.

"Yep, the water-resistant spray coating should have set by now, so you can play in the water."

With a happy woof, Duran splashed into the pool, spraying wet droplets everywhere.

"I don't know about that beach trip idea, Mai," Natsuki continued. "Every time I go to the seashore I end up in trouble. But if you're really set on it, just make sure to give me a week's notice so I can get Duran's rustproofing freshened up. He'd be sad if we went to the ocean and he couldn't go swimming."


	45. Censor Steam

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

~X X X~

_A/N: This one flirts with lime content. Though I really doubt anyone who's gotten this far would have any particular objections to that, I figured that it's only fair to warn you._

~X X X~

Natsuki enjoyed hot springs. Plunging herself into heated mineral water, leaning back, and letting herself melt into a puddle was definitely a great way to relax. The occasional cold drink tasted especially good by contrast, and she was even looking forward to the traditional Japanese inn they were staying at. Two years of being Shizuru Fujino's lover had helped give her a new appreciation for her country's cultural history, so that she'd been looking forward to this hot springs vacation trip ever since Mai (she of the endless supply of "friends hanging out together" projects) had suggested it.

It wasn't just Natsuki who was enjoying the hot springs: Kiyohime was laying on a rock in the middle of the pool, all six of her heads stretched out loose and floppy, heavy-lidded sleepy expressions on six individual faces. Clearly, Shizuru's hydra agreed with Natsuki about the best parts of a hot springs vacation.

Unfortunately, their opinion was not a unanimous one.

"S-Shizuru!" Natsuki exclaimed as her lips were momentarily freed.

"Yes, Natsuki?"

"What do you think you're _doing_?"

Shizuru blinked at Natsuki in apparent confusion.

"I...would think that would have been fairly self-evident?" she offered. "Has Natsuki not been paying close attention these past years?"

"Idiot! Anyone can tell that!" Indeed, it would have been very difficult to mistake Shizuru's intent. She had slipped into the pool where Natsuki reclined up against the rocky border of the hot spring, then quickly covered Natsuki's body with her own. Shizuru's firm thigh was pressed up between Natsuki's, one hand braced herself by holding Natsuki's shoulder, while the other cupped a bare breast (_and was_, Natsuki noted, _not...stopping...its caresses even—ah!—while they talked_). "I want to know why you're doing it here!"

"I've been dreaming of doing this ever since you told me about this trip," Shizuru purred in Natsuki's ear, before she dipped her head and sank her teeth lightly into the curve of muscle between neck and shoulder.

"This is a public—ah!—bath, Shizuru! Someone might...come in..."

It was extremely hard to properly protest against being pounced on by one's girlfriend while she was drawing involuntary gasps, moans, and shudders of pleasure from one's body. Natsuki knew, moreover, that she had only herself to blame. During their first few months as lovers, she'd been easily embarrassed about expressing her sexual feelings. Coming to terms with things like "trust" and "love" had been hard enough; she just didn't have a lot of life experience with intimacy and she'd been barely learning to accept it _emotionally_ with Shizuru, let alone physically. _A little maidenly shyness was only natural under the circumstances_, she thought defensively.

As opposed to Shizuru, who'd been...avid? Wanton? A raging nymphomaniac? Though she'd tossed those phrases back at Shizuru more than once in annoyance, Natsuki knew they weren't really fair: Shizuru's sexual enthusiasm had always had a sort of joyful innocence about it. She was like a child who, after several years of being absolutely denied any treats by health-conscious parents, was suddenly turned loose in a candy factory and told she could have as much as she wanted without guilt. It wasn't only that she had passionate desires for Natsuki, but that she was told it was _all right_ to have those desires that made her so eager to indulge them.

The net result of their respective feelings was several months solid of Shizuru being the much more active partner in bed before Natsuki finally became comfortable with her sexual self. Months in which Shizuru had learned exactly what spots to touch and in what way to reduce Natsuki to a state of being so aroused she'd cross over from "willingly let Shizuru do things _to_ her" to "do them right back, thank you very much."

Which knowledge, now that it wasn't needed for its original purpose, Shizuru was more than willing to put to work in the seduction process.

"On the contrary; the others have gone down into the village to take a tour of the temple gardens, and our party was large enough that we're the only guests at the inn. So that means that we" _Squeeze._ "have this" _Stroke._ "spring all to" _Nibble._ "ourselves for the next hour."

Natsuki's legs came up and scissored around Shizuru's hips, one hand spread out flat against her back and the other plunged into her sandy hair, and she pulled the other girl tightly against her while crushing their lips together. Her tongue ruthlessly plundered Shizuru's mouth for nearly two minutes, before she pulled her girlfriend's head away.

"You make some really convincing arguments," she said, her voice husky with the need she abandoned herself over to.

Shizuru beamed with delight, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. _They_ were alight with a very different kind of happy emotion, one much more well-suited to their crimson hue.

"Natsuki wants it quick and rough this morning, I see?" The promise in her voice made Natsuki's belly flutter and her thighs clench reflexively around Shizuru's, grinding down on her.

"Natsuki has better things for you to do with your mouth than talk," she growled, and pulled Shizuru back down for another searing kiss.

~X X X~

Duran would have liked to play in the hot springs with the others, but as a boy, he'd been banished from the women's side. Even deep in a nap, though, his canine senses were on keen alert, and his his ears twitched as his "watchdog" mode activated. His eyes flicked open, and he gave two quick woofs.

~X X X~

Kiyohime had been trying her best _not_ to listen to what was going on around her, but Duran's voice cut through that right away. The hydra lifted her heads, concentrating, and as soon as she realized what it was that Duran was raising the alarm _about_, she took six deep breaths.

~X X X~

"Okay, Mai," Nao said flatly as the six towel-clad girls walked outside from the changing room, "I'm all for a hot bath, but if an _outdoor_ hot spring is putting out so much steam that I can't see two feet in front of my face then I'm not putting a foot in there. I want a bath, not to become Nao soup."

"Is it really that hot?" Akane asked softly. "Since the gardens were closed for repairs, I was really hoping to get to soak in the springs at least."

Chie grinned wickedly.

"I don't think it's the pool putting out the steam, girls. At least, if that bright red I can see peeking through the fog is Natsuki's face instead of a safety light, then I have a feeling we should all be thanking Kiyohime right about now for what we're _not_ seeing."

~X X X~

_A/N: I hope that everyone remembered Kiyohime's steam breath (Shizuru's Wikipedia entry, incidentally, suggests that she's actually breathing venom in the show, like a spitting cobra...it certainly seems like a gaseous breath weapon while looking, though...) and Chie's knowledge of it from Chapter 25 ("A Misty Road to Stardom")! Incidentally, for anyone who's curious, the entire trip group consisted of Natsuki, Shizuru, Mai, Chie, Aoi, Nao, Akane, Mikoto, Reito, Tate, and Kazuya (and Duran, Kiyohime, Kagutsuchi, Miroku, Julia, and Hari, of course!)._


	46. It's at the Root of a Bad Reputation

**Duran-kun & Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kikukawa family houseplant)_

"Thanks a lot for helping me with these, everyone," Yukino said as she and Mai set the three-foot-square cardboard box down in the corner of the student council room. Chie and Aoi followed, setting their box down next to it.

"It's no problem; we're glad to help out," Mai said, wiping the sweat off her forehead with a handkerchief.

"Though I've got to ask," Chie put in, "now that you're the head of the Executive Committee, don't you have a squad of brawny lackeys who could do this for you?"

"Well..." Yukino began hesitantly, then blushed. "I didn't want to call them up on a Sunday to come in to do work."

"But it was fine to call up your friends, huh?" Chie's huge grin took the sting out of her words.

"I know, Haruka would probably say that I'm letting the committee members get lazy, but..." She blushed again. "And I'd be really embarrassed to tell a bunch of boys about this," she admitted.

She should have known better than to offer such a line to her friends. Three eager faces closed in on her like wolves cornering wounded prey.

"Ohhhhhh?" Chie was out in front. "Do tell, Yukino."

"Yeah!" Aoi chimed in. "All you said was that you'd caught some guys dealing stuff out of the back of a truck and scared them off."

"Pretty please?" Mai added.

Yukino bowed to peer pressure.

"I was walking to the garden store," she said, "when I saw two boys and one girl delivering boxes to another boy who was running a little street stand for selling DVDs. I recognized them as students, so first I took pictures of them with my phone, and then I had Diana create an illusion of a police car with sirens and lights. They jumped in the truck and drove off at once, leaving the boxes they'd already unloaded behind."

"That was pretty clever," Chie said.

"But why did you have Diana with you?" Mai wondered.

"She likes to pick out her own fertilizer," Yukino said. The potted plant, currently sitting on the president's desk next to a stack of circulars, quivered its fronds in acknowledgement.

"Aw, that's so cute," Mai said. "Kagutsuchi just eats whatever I feed him."

"Well, but you're such a good cook he probably likes all of it."

Chie laughed.

"You people and your weird pets."

"I wish Nao had a plant," Aoi groused, recalling numerous conflicts with her roommate's CHILD.

"The police will be by to pick up these boxes on Monday, but I wanted to properly lock them up without breaking the chain of custody so they can be used as evidence. Headmistress Fumi will want to take disciplinary action as well, I think, since this goes a little beyond violating the student codes."

The girls nodded at Yukino. It wasn't, she thought, quite how Haruka would have handled the situation, but it should get the job done, which was the important thing.

"But what I still don't see is why you'd be embarrassed," Chie said, though her smirk suggested that she had a pretty good idea as to why.

"W-well, it's just..."

"You know, don't you also have to log in the _contents_ of these boxes as well?" she went on. "It's not enough to just say 'two boxes of DVDs,' at least according to all the cop shows that I've watched. And given how big and heavy those boxes are, I think it could take all afternoon if you have to do it yourself. What say we help her out with that, girls?"

"That's a good idea, Chie," Mai said.

"Um, it's really not..." Yukino began, but Chie was already pulling open the flaps of the nearest box, to reveal the neat stacks of bootleg anime DVDs.

Specifically, bootleg _adult_ anime DVDs.

It was a testament to the high regard in which Yukino's friends held her character that not even Chie made any remark along the lines of "oh, so you wanted to do this alone so you could hold a little private screening, eh?" Which was good, because if they had it was entirely possible Yukino would have dropped dead from embarrassment on the spot.

"Okay, I can see why you didn't want the boys around snickering and leering at this stuff," Mai said.

Yukino nodded.

"It was different when Haruka would catch someone with this kind of material, but..."

"You're new on the job and not quite so intimidating," Aoi said sympathetically.

"Hm, some of these look pretty hot," Chie offered, not quite so helpfully as the others. "What's this one, _Angel of Darkness IV_? I wonder if—"

She was cut off by the smack of a sheaf of circulars hitting her in the face.

"Huh? What was that about?"

The girls looked over to the desk, where Diana was writhing angrily.

"Sorry about that, Chie," Yukino explained. "She's awfully offended by that one. She thinks it gives people a really bad opinion of tentacle-vine plants."

~X X X~

_A/N: I admit, I was of two minds about posting this one (I didn't even write it up in the file with the other D&KOT stories), but my wife laughed so hard that I had to go ahead with it. Here's hoping at least some of you get to enjoy it!_


	47. A Little Saintly Intercession

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Ishigami (nee Sanada) family...sculpture?)_

_A/N: This story is dedicated to Demon from the Dare You To Love Me yuri (& more! A small but growing place, you should definitely stop by) forum where I often hang out online (she's LittleDemonInside at fanfiction dot net). I was complaining about the fact that I just couldn't think of anything possible to do with this series and Yukariko, and she promptly ripped off about six perfectly viable ideas for Yukariko and chibi-form St. Vlas that I could use. Since this story basically *is* based on one of those ideas, a huge thank-you is owed to her. Thanks, Demon!_

~X X X~

"Drat!" Yukariko Ishigami said as she was jostled by a shopping cart, causing her to fumble the daikon radish she'd just selected and drop it into the bin, which set off a mini-landslide of root vegetables cascading to the floor. In fact, the situation probably called for stronger language, but growing up in a convent school plus a short career as a nun really hadn't prepared the young, blonde housewife for the proper use of profanity.

Another cart crashed into her own basket. Yukariko's son Makoto gurgled from his baby seat, the one-year-old waving his pudgy arms.

Really, Fuuka needed more markets to shop at, Yukariko decided. She hadn't appreciated how lucky she was to have access to the Fuuka Academy cafeteria while she'd been serving at the chapel there. Especially around holidays, when it seemed the entire population of the city had descended upon the markets to lay in food for when they were closed.

Father Joseph Greer (_no, he wasn't a priest_, she reminded herself, _just a robotics engineer working secretly for the Searrs Foundation_) had noted how Japan was similar to Europe in how people shopped more often for only a meal or two, while in America they'd go to a giant supermarket and lay in a month's supplies in one fell swoop. Which, she supposed, just meant for bigger crowds in a larger building fighting for a longer time with bigger, even more overflowing shopping carts, so a culture shift probably wouldn't solve her problems.

Eventually, though, Yukariko managed to win her way through to the other side of the job, with all the ingredients she needed for hot-pot (or in other words, she'd grabbed up whatever she could lay hands on and hot-pot was the only thing she could make that would use the rather eclectic collection of stuff). With a deep sigh of relief that she hadn't shamed herself by seizing one of the wretched, sinful heathens—er, shoppers—by the throat and inflicted some extreme penance for their sins of discourtesy, such as stuffing their head into a watermelon, she began to unload her cart onto the checkout counter. The clerk, looking weary but still managing a smile, glanced warily at the baby, then began scanning through Yukariko's items.

"There you are, Mrs. Ishigami. Your total is three thousand, eight hundred and fifty-four yen."

Yukariko opened her purse and reached in for her wallet, having to nudge Makoto the side since the purse was slightly jammed under the seat to keep someone from stealing it in the confusion. He made another happy gurgle.

"Your son is always so well-behaved whenever I see him here, Mrs. Ishigami," the clerk said. "Lots of children his age would be crying and screaming when it gets so busy."

"Oh, no, that's not true at all," Yukariko instantly demurred the compliment as politeness demanded, even though she was happy that the check-out girl's life had been made a little easier by Makoto's happiness. "Any praise belongs to St. Vlas."

The clerk's eyes flicked to the gold crucifix Yukariko wore around her neck.

"I'm sorry; I don't know much about Christian saints..."

Yukariko smiled gently.

"Well, that's not quite what I meant," she said, and rested her hand on the forehead of what looked like a foot-tall statue of a unicorn's head and neck, like a white knight from a chessboard, that was snugged into the cart next to the baby seat. The CHILD's eyes were gleaming, and Yukariko felt a twinge of envy for Makoto, wrapped as he was in an illusionary world without any screaming, banging, pushing, and shoving crowds to bother him!

~X X X~

_A/N: Here's a place where I prefer the fan-translated name for a CHILD, 'cause, well, the whole joke kind of goes away if the "Saint" gets dropped off the front of his name. And if anyone knows if Yukariko's child is actually given a name (and for that matter, a sex) in any supplemental materials, art books, etc., please let me know, since I just arbitrarily assigned him one._


	48. Bad Hair Days Are for the Birds

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Munakata family pet)_

Yatagarasu was under attack.

He'd never had to fight Kiyohime in the HiME Festival, but he had a feeling that this was what it would have been like—long, thick tentacles like the arms of an octopus looking out at him, coiling around his body, pinioning the crow-CHILD's wings so he couldn't escape by flight.

He screeched in rage and fright, his three eyes burning with emotion. Thunder roared in the background as fanged mouths descended towards him, lunging out of the fog. He slashed with his three-taloned foot, trying to rip his way free, but the coils holding him did not yield.

Lightning flashed, revealing looming dragon-like heads with long rows of teeth. He _had_ fought Kagutsuchi in the Festival, and while their duel had not been settled between the two of them he still had the deepest respect for the fiery beast's power. These heads seemed not dissimilar, steam and flickers of fire hissing from between fanged maws.

Thunder roared again. Yatagarasu thrashed for his freedom, trying to break free, but succeeded only in entangling himself further. Like the prey of a constrictor, when he fought he gained nothing, and when his effort caused him to relax he found the grip on him tightening.

He was going to lose.

In desperation, he sought to play his trump card. He opened his beak, ready to breathe out his searing laser-like energy blast. Not only was it devastating in and of itself, but for some reason people just didn't expect a breath weapon from a bird until it was too late.

Well, most people.

Whatever his current opponent was, it did not fall into that category. A coil snaked around his beak, clamping it shut. As the coils tightened, he tried to struggle, tried to scream, tried to do _anything_...

"Ahhhh!"

Shiho Munakata sat bolt upright in bed, and immediately got a searing pain through the right side of her head. Lightning flashed, and in the vanity table mirror she saw that her CHILD, Yatagarasu, had somehow gotten tangled in her right-hand drill-curl and was now dangling upside-down as if braided up in it, while thrashing around and making terrified little chirping noises.

"You know," she said as she started helping him get free, "I don't mind you snuggling up next to me when you're frightened by thunderstorms, but if you're going to have bad dreams and rip my hair out of its curlers, then you're just going to have to learn to tough it out!"

~X X X~

_A/N: Long-time readers will of course recall that after the baseball incident, Shiho adopted her _My-Otome_ hairstyle in this series._


	49. Know Thy Enemy

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fugino family pets)_

Duran stared at his opponent, keeping his eyes locked on his foe's. Of course, the problem with doing that with Kiyohime was that she had twelve of them, so while one head was matching Duran in a stare-down, the other five could be off doing who-knew-what. That was part of what made her such a tricky opponent.

The key, he knew, was to keep her in front of him at all times. A direct assault was something he could deal with. It was in his nature, really. A look at him would tell anyone that. His natural weapons were all forward-facing: he had teeth and he had claws like any normal dog, but even his ability as a CHILD, the twin side-mounted cannons that ran along his flanks, reinforced that rather than diversified it. They added a ranged attack, but it was all unidirectional. Forward, straight ahead, advance directly at the foe.

In this, he reflected the nature of his mistress, the admirably focused and direct (or singleminded and tunnel-visioned, but Duran didn't choose to accept the opinions of Nao Yuuki about the people he cared for) Natsuki Kuga. That wasn't to say that Natsuki couldn't be discreet when she wanted to be, but subtle and labyrinthine was not her style.

On the other hand, subtle and labyrinthine suited Shizuru Fujino to a T. Natsuki's lover liked to lay traps within traps, get people moving in one direction only to find they'd taken a road that lead exactly where Shizuru wanted them to go. Kiyohime had actually been one of the strongest CHILDs in terms of raw power, probably thanks to Shizuru's obsessively all-consuming love for Natsuki, but still would burrow up from beneath in a surprise attack, or strike from multiple directions with her many heads. She was a tricky, tricky opponent. Duran needed to keep things direct, open, and simple if he hoped to defeat her.

After due consideration, he reached out and pushed his rook forward three spaces with his paw, then sat back on his haunches and waited for her next move.

"I think," Natsuki commented to Shizuru, who was stretched out on the couch with her feet in Natsuki's lap for a footrub, "I liked it better when our pets were playing tug-of-war."

~X X X~

_A/N: Technically, Kiyohime has fourteen eyes, or at least the main body really looks like it has a pair of its own, but those don't get involved in stare-downs so Duran's not counting them. Oh, and for the curious, they're playing shogi rather than chess._


	50. A Time to Be Forthright

**Duran and Kiyohime's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

_A/N: This one...kind of got away from me, until it wasn't just an omake but as long or longer as most of my legitimate one-shots. So I decided to save it for the big 50th-chapter party. *throws confetti*_

~X X X~

Shizuru Fujino was in a bad mood.

In fact, she'd been so stressed and grumpy for the past week that her girlfriend and housemate Natsuki Kuga had on more than one occasion come out and asked if she'd said or done something stupid to make Shizuru mad at her. Shizuru had hastened to assure her that this was not the case, even though there actually had been a handful of times when she genuinely had snapped at Natsuki over something. Shizuru, however, was self-aware enough to recognize the difference between being actually bothered that Natsuki had taken off her hoodie on the couch and never put it away, only to have it sprout between the cushions later; and being in a bad mood generally while Natsuki's more slovenly habits were just one more straw on the load.

Still, when Natsuki started to act hesitant, when Duran got up from his nap and headed to another room whenever Shizuru come home, and when Kiyohime preferred to hang out in the living room with Natsuki instead of in the kitchen when dinner was being made (and available for snacking), it became plain to Shizuru that she simply could not hide behind a smile any longer.

That was the down side to intimacy and trust, she'd found. It was more than just having the one you loved be willing to turn to you and open the secrets of her heart. It wasn't enough to just let it flow one way; you had to open yourself up to her, because she'd earned the right to your confidence with her love. By _not_ opening up to Natsuki, Shizuru would in effect be saying to her, "I don't trust you. There are things about me that you have no right to know."

That might work all right for casual daters like Natsuki's friend Mai and her two boyfriends. She was sure Reito and Tate would _like_ Mai to open up to them, but they knew it was her privilege to decide when. She'd made no promises, explicit or implied.

Natsuki and Shizuru had killed for each other, _died_ for each other, caused each other pain and heartbreak and healed two badly broken souls together. And they _had_ made promises on top of that, ones in words even beyond the silent ones between them. And next to the HiME Festival, what were the problems of day-to-day life?

Particularly when the only real barrier to talking about it was the fact that the ex-Student Council President, honor student, former magnet for fangirls, hated to let others see when she was being foolish or in the wrong. "Others" in this case included even Natsuki, whom, after all, Shizuru still wanted to impress. She wanted Natsuki to think of her not as the too-perfect girl from her public face, but at least as someone who didn't find herself doing foolish things, then getting huffy about it.

But there really wasn't any other choice. Particularly when her mood had spilled over onto Natsuki anyway.

She sighed, pushed herself away from her paper-strewn desk, and went out to face the music.

When she opened the door, the fragrant smells of garlic and soy sauce rose to tease her nostrils. Surprised, she looked over to the table, where Natsuki was emptying containers of take-out Chinese onto plates. Kiyohime chose that moment to emerge from the kitchen on Duran's back, carrying a steaming teapot cradled in her heads. Natsuki took the pot from the hydra-turned-serving-tray and set it in the center of the table.

"Natsuki, what's all this?" Shizuru asked, momentarily distracted from her purpose.

"Well, it's pretty obvious that you've been having a hard week, so I figured that you could use a break from doing the cooking."

Shizuru looked at her and felt herself start to tear up. A year ago, Natsuki would have done the same nice thing, but she'd never have just come out and said why. Instead, she'd have stammered, maybe even blushed, and said something like, "What, can't I order dinner out once in a while?" Of course, that would have been so incredibly cute, but...this was so much better.

And it was precisely on point for what she'd just been thinking about trust and opening herself up even when she wasn't comfortable about it.

Shizuru couldn't help it. She chuckled, shaking her head.

"I really can't win against you, Natsuki."

"Huh? I don't know what you're talking about."

"I know you don't. That's what's so amazing. You won again without even knowing that there was a battle going on."

Natsuki blinked.

"No matter how long I know you, I still have no idea what goes on in your head half the time."

Shizuru gave her the "enigmatic" smile.

"That's fine, though, isn't it? A woman ought to keep a little mystery as a secret of her charm."

Natsuki snorted.

"Trust me, Shizuru, the part of you that makes me want to nail you with a pillow is not what I'd call charming."

"But Natsuki loves me anyway, doesn't she?"

"Of course I do, even when you're being a crab instead of a snake or a fox or whatever traditionally sneaky and mysterious animal you want to use for comparison."

Shizuru sighed.

"About that...I owe you a big apology, Natsuki. I've been badly out of sorts all week and you deserve an explanation."

"Darned right I do," Natsuki said, but with no heat in her voice, reassuring Shizuru that there was no malice behind it. "Come on, let's eat and we can talk about it."

They sat down and dove in. Natsuki had gotten an eclectic mix of appetizers and dishes, making dinner something of a makeshift _dim sum_ without the carts. Even the CHILDs got some: Duran dug into a bowl of fried rice with roast pork, while Kiyohime's heads took turns holding the skewers of teriyaki beef while other heads slid off chunks of meat to swallow. Shizuru could have made herself eat smoothly and politely—it was a skill she'd learned, so as to not give anything away when dining with business contacts—but focused more on talking while occasionally nibbling on a spring roll or shrimp dumpling.

"I made a rather serious mistake on one of my class projects," she began, deciding to plunge in directly rather than slowly dip a toe in first.

"You?"

Shizuru supposed that Natsuki's surprise was natural enough. Shizuru had finished first in her class for her freshman year.

"I botched a deadline," she admitted. "The professor announced the deadline in class, but the course's Web page had it differently, because he had originally set it for a later date, then decided to move it up."

"I see. So you thought you'd written it down wrong in class or something."

Shizuru hung her head.

"Actually...I was not in class that day."

Natsuki raised an eyebrow.

"Huh? You haven't been sick a day this whole semester. Believe me, I'd remember." Shizuru was...not a good patient.

"I did not say that I was sick, only that I was not in class," she admitted.

"You ditched? _You?_" Natsuki grinned. "Man, if the fangirls ever heard about this, they'd be shocked!"

"It's as much your fault as mine."

"Now, wait a minute. I used to cut classes all the time, sure, and okay, I still do once in a while, but don't go claiming my bad habits are rubbing off on you."

"That is not what I meant. It is only that the class in question has 8:00 a.m. lectures, and that particular morning Natsuki was sleeping so cutely that I had to wake her up in a special way..."

Natsuki began to blush. Apparently she had no trouble remembering the morning in question either.

"...and then Natsuki reacted with such, shall I say, _vigor_, that I was unable to leave the bed until well after the lecture was over."

Despite the blush, Natsuki gave her a smug grin.

"I'd have untied you if you'd told me you had a morning class, Shizuru."

"It...was not a particular priority of mine at the time?" Shizuru offered, and both young women dissolved into giggles. Shizuru would have sworn that at least three of Kiyohime's heads rolled their eyes. "Still and all, though, it was my fault, for not having my priorities in order," she admitted.

"Hey, I'm flattered that spending time with me is more attractive than class. So what happened? Are you going to fail your assignment?"

She shook her head.

"I heard about the changed deadline from one of my classmates two days before time was up, so I went to the professor and explained the circumstances."

"You didn't tell him _why_ you missed class, did you?"

"_Ara_, do you think I would tell my professor that I missed his lecture because I was being held at the sexual mercy of my cute high-school girlfriend?"

"Geez, you make it sound like I'm Shiho's age when you say it like that. And yes, I think you're capable of saying any number of outrageous things when you think you'll get some advantage by it."

"Natsuki really _is_ cute when she's pouting," Shizuru laughed. "But while I have to admit that you're quite right about me, I didn't go into any such detail. Professor Sawada is not the type to be moved by that particular kind of appeal."

"Yeah, too bad you don't have Midori."

"Yes, she'd be perfect. No, the course doesn't have a mandatory attendance policy, so I did not need to go into detail. The T.A. was supposed to update the web posting, but had not, so the professor sympathized with my problem, particularly since I have always been a top student." She frowned at that last thought, almost scowling.

"Okay, so how come you're going around here acting miserable if the prof let it slide?"

"He gave me an extension to turn in the project because of the T.A.'s failure to update the online course information, yes. But he also said that as it was also my fault that I'd missed his announcement, he would deduct ten points from my grade on account of its lateness."

Natsuki thought that over.

"Hm. On the one hand, that kinda sucks, though on the other I can see his point. But since I don't love or sleep with his point, I'm going with the first option. I'm sorry, Shizuru."

"Thank you, Natsuki."

"Is this going to cost you the top spot in your class ranking?"

"Probably," she admitted. "The competition is very fierce. I can all but hear Haruka's crow of victory in my ears."

"Ouch. That's the part that really bites, isn't it?"

The desire to laugh it off was almost overwhelming, but Shizuru managed to hold out against that cowardice. Unfortunately, she was not able to do the same for a lesser version.

"Why do you say that?"

The reason this was "unfortunate" was that Natsuki could indeed answer the question.

"C'mon, Shizuru, I know you. This relationship stuff runs both ways, right? Sure, I know you don't care two pins for beating Haruka at...well, at anything, and it's always been so one-sided between you two that you can't call it a rivalry. But I also know that you _hate_ to _lose_, and the way she'll run around braying about beating you is going to make it twice as bad."

"To be fair, Haruka is easily as hard on herself when she loses to me as I expect that she will be on me if she wins. Probably more so, since she just can't walk away from herself."

Natsuki crossed her arms over her chest.

"...But you're right," Shizuru admitted.

"I've got to say, I'm kind of curious."

"About what?"

"Well, when the rankings come out, you're going to smile and be all sweet and unperturbed and congratulate Haruka on how hard she worked and that kind of thing, right?"

"Of course," Shizuru grinned, since they were being honest.

"Well, is that going to spoil all of Haruka's fun or not?"

"Ah, I see. You wonder if her interest in beating me is about _me_, that is, about making me feel defeated, or if it is about herself, and I am...merely the standard she is trying to exceed?"

"Right. She's kind of hard to read."

Shizuru blinked. The idea of _Haruka Suzushiro_ being enigmatic and difficult to understand was definitely a new one, but she could see what Natsuki meant. And it was a very interesting question, too, because the answer would be very revealing about what kind of person Haruka was.

"I suspect it probably will be the latter," she decided.

"How come?"

"I did work with her on the student council for a year, and a rather hectic one at that," Shizuru observed. "But mostly it's because of Yukino. I do not think she would have remained so close to Haruka if Haruka were so small-minded."

"I'll buy that," Natsuki decided. "Even so, give me a heads-up for when you know the grades will be posted. I'll make sure that I'm there when you come home, so I can give you a good shoulder massage from dealing with the stress."

Shizuru couldn't resist.

"_Ara_, just my shoulders?"

"Other activities to be determined by how you feel." Natsuki didn't blush or look embarrassed even a little, which was an open indication of how serious she was being.

"Thank you very much, Natsuki."

"Hey, I love you too, you know. That means I get to take care of you when you're feeling down just like you do when I get all crabby. But hey, next time, tell me when something's wrong, okay? Don't let it slide until you're scaring the pets; I can't try and help unless I know what you need, right?"

"How did Natsuki get so wise?"

"There was this stubborn girl who spent years getting me to slow down and talk out my feelings instead of keeping it all inside, though she wasn't so hot at taking her own advice."

"Natsuki..."

"That and I read a lot of fortune cookies." She flipped one to Shizuru. While Natsuki was making sure Duran and Kiyohime didn't accidentally eat their fortunes, Shizuru broke open her cookie, read the slip of paper, and laughed.

"Heh, what is it?"

"I think this fortune was meant for me to read when I first came into the room."

"Oh?"

"Yes; it says, 'It's time to get moving. Your spirits will lift accordingly.' I would say that is advice I had been needing all week to encourage me to talk to you."

"Oh. I thought you were going to say something else. Most of your fortunes end up saying 'You should take your girlfriend to bed right now.'"

Shizuru flashed her a smile.

"Oh? Was Natsuki perhaps anticipating this?" She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, which was really not her usual style, but so long as the theme of the evening was complete openness with her emotions... "Did you choose Chinese food for our take-out dinner with that precise purpose in mind, hmm?"

Now, _that_ got a very classic Natsuki blush.

"Why, Natsuki. How positively _sneaky_! I would never have believed it of you!"

Natsuki scratched at her cheek in a distracted little gesture.

"Well, I had a good teacher."

Shizuru beamed at her.

"A teacher who is very proud of her student." She hopped to her feet and seized Natsuki's hand. "Such diligent attention to your lessons deserves a worthy reward."

"Isn't this how you got into this trouble in the first place?" Natsuki said, a little acerbically. It was to be observed, however, that she did not offer the slightest resistance to being pulled up out of the chair, an arm snaking around her slim wait to hold her tight against Shizuru. Lips met warmly, and Shizuru waltzed Natsuki towards the bedroom door.

Kiyohime and Duran looked at one another for a long moment, then the hydra began handing containers down to the floor. After all, if past experience was anything to go by, neither of the girls was going to be coming back anywhere near in time to get the leftovers into the refrigerator. And it would be a shame to let perfectly good food go to waste!

~X X X~

_A/N: I just want to take a moment to thank all of you, readers and reviewers, for your kind attention during this series. I never expected a silly little idea like this to stick around long enough to produce this many omake and one-shots, that's certain! Here's hoping that I can keep cranking them out for as long as you enjoy them. ^_-_


	51. She Outnumbers You All By Herself

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring a Kuga-Fujino family pet)_

"Could someone please explain just what the hell I'm doing here? Wearing _this_?"

Natsuki tugged at the hem of her bright red, trimmed-with-fake-white-fur miniskirt. No magic caused it to lengthen beyond its barely-legal size. About all that could be said for it was that it matched the bare-midriff top, red leggings, pointed red tassel cap, and spike-heeled black boots.

"_Ara_," Shizuru Fujino, wearing an identical get-up, showed no signs of agitation. "I do not believe that profanity is appropriate when dressed as Santa Claus and doing charitable work."

"And it's for a good cause," Mai remarked, handing a leaflet to a passerby. The costumes were apparently one-size-fits-all, so the redhead got more coverage out of the skirt but was showing more stomach due to how the fabric of her top was otherwise occupied.

"Natsuki's generous heart demanded that she support a friend and help make people happy on Christmas."

Natsuki scowled.

"Generous heart my butt. One, Nao's not my friend, and two, I didn't volunteer, I just gave in to stop you from whining and making those puppy eyes at me."

Shizuru giggled, and was immediately echoed by Mai.

"Fuuka Chapel's annual Christmas food drive does a lot of good for the poor in this area every year. Especially during the winter, people need nutritious meals and warm shelter."

"And the fact that you get to see me dressed up like some porn-star Santa about to deliver the naughty list had nothing to do with it," Natsuki told her girlfriend dryly.

"_Ara_, does Natsuki suspect that I had licentious intentions when I asked Nao if we could return the costumes in a couple of days?"

"I suspect you of licentious intentions when you're flossing your teeth."

"Hey, ladies, less chit-chat! These benefit dinner tickets aren't going to sell themselves!"

They all turned to see Nao, formally attired in her nun's habit, coming up behind them.

"And quit whining," she added. "Sex sells. Between your legs, carrot-top's boobs, and Fujino's...Fujino-ness...you catch people's attention, and then once you've got them reeled in, bam! You hit them up for everything you can get."

"Just like when you and Julia used to rob people, huh, _Sister_?"

"Previous experience with the techniques just makes me more effective in doing the Lord's work," Nao said archly.

"Oh, so then if you've got all that experience, why aren't you out here freezing your legs off?"

"You would have a holy Sister of the Church display her body in lewd and provocative fashion? For shame! Truly, the passions of youth have corrupted your soul."

Natsuki ground her teeth.

"Remind me to kill you later."

"Yeah, yeah, I know. But for right now, how about you guys show a little more enthusiasm? The three of you together have taken in less in donations than she has all by herself."

Nao pointed to the fourth female lined up in their group. Kiyohime, with wreaths around each neck and Santa caps on each head, was busy collecting donations, handing out leaflets, and selling tickets. A steady stream of money was pouring into the hydra's kettle.

"Well, what do you expect? Even using one to ring the bell, that still leaves her five heads compared to our three."

~X X X~

_A/N: See, I promised that Chapter 50 wouldn't be the last one! And I just have to say, Nao is really a godsend for a comedy writer._


	52. One Has to Consider the Audience

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

"So that takes care of the Nemean Lion. What's up next?" Mai asked.

"I don't see why we have to study Classical mythology anyway," her boyfriend—one of them, anyway—groused.

"I can't argue with Tate there," Natsuki said. "I mean, shouldn't we start with Japanese mythology first? Or maybe Chinese—but our culture doesn't even have its roots in Greek and Roman civilization, so why are we suffering through it now? Not to mention the content; most of these so-called 'heroes' are just jumped-up thugs who ran around killing people and taking their stuff. Plus there's their attitudes towards women. If Medea had flambéd Jason instead of the kids, I'd call _her_ the hero of that story."

A chorus of firm nods and "Mm-hms!" broke out from the girls at the table. The second-year friends were gathered at Natsuki's house for a study session since, in Mai's irrepressible logic, Natsuki _had_ a house instead of a dormitory apartment. Since Natsuki's girlfriend Shizuru was off at university classes and the guests had brought food, it seemed like a decent plan.

"You getting a bit nervous, Tate?" Kazuya asked his fellow male.

"That wouldn't be very fair, if Mai sicced Kagutsuchi on Tate for dating another girl," Yukino remarked primly.

"That's not the same thing at all," Chie said. "Tate and Reito both want to date Mai; they're just letting her take her time deciding."

"Unless they've got other reasons for keeping the relationship the way it is," Aoi added.

"Ooh, I hadn't thought of that!" Yukino said. "Do you really think that's possible?"

"No, it isn't!" Tate shouted.

"Though you figured out what they meant right away, didn't you?" noted Kazuya, casting male solidarity to the winds.

"Kanzaki spends more time looking pretty than any girl I know," Natsuki put in, "so I can see how Tate could make the mistake, and—argh! What in the name of Heaven am I _saying_!?"

"One of us! One of us!" Chie and Aoi chanted teasingly.

"Your girlfriend's a bad influence on you," Mai played the sage. "Or maybe a good influence?"

Kazuya looked over at Akane.

"Just for the record, I really love you for being exactly who you are," he told his girlfriend.

"You too, Kazu!"

Natsuki would have made gagging sounds, but there was a distinct threat it would somehow get back to Shizuru that she was mocking the lovey-dovey couple and that was a risk no sane woman would take. Instead she rapped her knuckles on the table.

"Look, people, fun as this is, we've got eleven more Labors to get through and I want this crowd out of here before Shizuru comes home for dinner."

Chie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

"Oho, eager to get some alone time with the wifey?"

Much to Natsuki's surprise, the Kuga Death Glare actually wiped the smile off the gossip-hound's face. _Weird, that never works on this crowd._

"Ahem, right, the second Labor of Hercules," Mai stepped in. "That was the Lernaean Hydra, wasn't it?"

Five snakelike purple heads popped up from under the table where Kiyohime had been snuggling Natsuki's feet. After a muffled thump, the third head woozily emerged to join the others.

"You need to either look where you're going or stop going underneath stuff," Natsuki advised it.

"Apparently, the Lernaean Hydra was a rampaging monster with nine heads," Yukino said, checking her textbook. Kiyohime greeted this news with startled hissing.

"Aw, she doesn't like it that the hydra is a bad guy?" Akane said.

"It's like Natsuki said about the 'heroes' being thugs and villains," Aoi agreed, but Kiyohime was shaking her heads. "Huh, that's not it?"

Several heads snaked out and, snatching up stray pencils, arranged nine of them in a row.

"You mean, it's that it had nine heads?"

Kiyohime nodded, shivering a little.

What's so scary about that?" Tate wondered. "I mean, you've got six of them already—ow, what was that for?" he yelped. Mai had reached over and given him a forehead flick.

"Yuuichi, just because you're the 'ordinary guy' boyfriend doesn't mean you have to _try_ to be insensitive."

Natsuki didn't get it either and she lived with Kiyohime, but she was bright enough not to say that out loud while sitting within Mai's reach.

"What? I don't get it! What's the big difference?" Tate did the necessary asking anyway.

Mai sighed.

"You'd think a giant with an extra head was scary, wouldn't you?"

"Well, yeah, that would be freaky."

"And what about Cerberus?" Yukino skipped several Labors ahead. "He's not just frightening because he's a huge magical dog, but because he has three heads."

From somewhere behind her, Duran woofed in agreement, though Natsuki wasn't entirely sure that a canine made of metal with built-in cannon was really in any position to criticize other dogs' physical idiosyncrasies.

"And the Lernaean Hydra has not just one or two, but _three extra heads._ Think how creepy that must be for Kiyohime!" Mai finished up. Kiyohime nuzzled her, clearly thankful that someone understood.

Tate and Natsuki both looked at the hydra dubiously, not really following the logic. Frankly, to Natsuki once something had its second natural head, any extras weren't all that odd, but then, she wasn't a hydra.

"You know," Akane pointed out, "it says here that the reason the Lernaean Hydra was such a fierce monster was that whenever one of its heads was cut off, two more grew back in its place. That had to happen at least once for people to hear about it, so maybe it actually started with the normal six?"

With a sound that could only be described as a squeak, six purple heads vanished under the table.

"Not helping, Akane."

"Let's just move on to the third Labor," Chie suggested. "At least, I don't _think_ any of you people's weird pets is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?"

They weren't, but Kiyohime bit her on the toe just in case.

~X X X~

_A/N: Happy (one day late) Year of the Snake, Kiyohime!_

_Also, for the curious, the Drama CDs reveal that Yukino is right up there with Aoi in her knowledge of yaoi. Just in case anyone was afraid she was being wildly OOC even for a humor fic with that!_

_In additional news, you may notice that the Omake Theater has cover art now! Yep, Krystal of Nol did a ravingly cute pic of Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan playing with Shizuru and Natsuki plushies, completely unsolicited(!), and let me use it for the cover. The link's in my profile, so people can go look at the full-size version at DA and join the squeeing._


	53. Scaling the Tips

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Takumi Tokiha strolled up the neatly swept front walk leading to the house. He wasn't there as a guest; even though the cause for his family's financial concerns, his heart surgery, had gone well and was no longer a burden on them, the virtues of frugality and responsibility that his older sister Mai had taught him still remained. He'd taken a job with a local Chinese restaurant to earn some extra money after school. Usually, he worked in the kitchen, but that day they had a shortage of delivery people so he'd been sent out on his bike to deliver the box full of full cartons and soup containers to its destination.

The barking of a dog answered Takumi after he'd gone up the front steps and rang the doorbell. A fair amount of shuffling around could be heard from inside, and the door opened.

Takumi blinked in surprise.

"Hi, Kiyohime; hi, Duran."

The purple hydra was sitting on the shoulders of the metal wolf, her sixth head uncoiling from around the doorknob.

"Are you guys getting the food today?"

Several heads bobbed up and down.

"Okay." He leaned forward and set the box down on Duran's back, tucking it between the rifles that ran along his sides so it wouldn't fall off. "That'll be six thousand, four hundred yen."

Kiyohime's second head dipped down and ruffled through a sheaf of money that she had pinned between her belly and Duran's back. It came up with a packet of bills in its mouth and extended them to Takumi who took it, quickly verifying that it was all there.

"Thanks!" He un-zipped his money pouch and put the bills inside. When he did, his fingers brushed against a sheet of paper. "Oh, the cook wanted me to give this to Ms. Fujino. Something about specially picking out the fortune cookies, I think?" He shrugged, not quite seeing the point, but handed the note over. Kiyohime's third head took it. "I think that's all, then. Thank you for choosing Mandarin Palace!"

Takumi turned to go, but Duran woofed. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that Kiyohime's first head was holding out a thousand yen.

"Thanks!" He winked at them. "You know, Mai was right; you guys _are_ better tippers than Natsuki."


	54. Kiyo-chan Can Take the Heat

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater!**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Natsuki Kuga was not having a good day.

The problems had started at school, where her chemistry teacher had informed her that, due to the pop quiz she had missed while cutting class the day before, she was going to be stuck taking a makeup test after-hours. Then her homeroom teacher had pointed out that her lack of any club membership could well make her ineligible to apply for the entrance exams to certain universities, regardless of her test scores, including Fuuka University—which due to its escalator clause didn't even _require_ an entrance exam for Fuuka Academy graduates.

Since the homeroom teacher in question was Midori, Natsuki had just folded her arms across her chest and said, "Since when is 'HiME Sentai' not a club?"

"It's not an official school-sponsored activity."

"The only reason this school even _exists_ is so there'd be an excuse to gather the HiME. How much more school-sponsored can you get? We even had an official faculty advisor: _you_."

"That isn't the point! Superheroines are supposed to maintain their secret identities at all times! We spring into the light as champions of justice, figures larger-than-life to inspire hope in the populace! We cannot allow the image of a hero to be tainted by reality. And it certainly doesn't go down on a semi-delinquent's college application."

"...This means I'm going to have to get Fumi to overrule you, doesn't it?"

"Young girls today have no respect for tradition," Midori had groused.

There had been a couple of other, minor incidents—breaking pencils, cell phone falling into the udon bowl at lunch ("This is what you get for cheating on Mai's ramen!" Mikoto had said), bruising her hand punching out a panty thief in the locker room—so that by the time she got home, Natsuki was working on a good old-fashioned case of crabby.

Thus when she opened the door and a cloud of steam washed over her, she figured that it was pretty much par for the course.

"Shizuru?" she called into the wall of white. "Shizuru, did we get mugged by the sauna monster or did a hot water pipe spring a leak?"

Happy barking greeted her voice and her dog bounded up to her. Idly, she gave Duran's steel head a few quick hello pets while repeating, "Shizuru?"

Duran took her uniform sleeve in his mouth and tugged.

"You know what's going on? Okay, lead the way."

He wagged and pulled Natsuki into the house. She was a little bit worried, since her girlfriend ought to have been home by now, but Duran's mood soothed most of that feeling. He'd have been a lot more agitated if Shizuru had, say, slipped in the shower and knocked herself out while the house filled up with steam.

So whatever was going on, it probably fell into the category of "typical, probably annoying weirdness" instead of "disaster." _Small favors_, she reminded herself.

Duran took her through the fog-filled house to the glass doors that led out back. She slid the nearest one open, setting off another rush of steam, and went out to find Shizuru Fujino reclining peacefully in a deck chair, a frosty glass of ice tea next to her.

"_Ara, ara,_ Natsuki, the house must be full of steam. Why didn't you go around instead of walking through it?"

"Now someone tells me."

"I did text you," Shizuru said, pouting a little.

"Which goes to show the kind of day I've been having. Your text is buried under pork broth and fried egg."

"Oh, I see. I knew that Natsuki had been having trouble, but not the specifics."

"Huh, you knew?"

"Mai is a caring friend; she called to let me know. So, your family decided to prepare a special dinner for you, which is why the house is full of steam."

Natsuki just stood blinking for a second.

"Natsuki?"

"...Sorry; I just had one of those moments where I recognized the words but they don't really make sense, you know?"

Shizuru giggled.

"I think you should sit down and relax if you are that stressed."

Knowing good advice when she heard it, Natsuki parked her butt on another chair.

"Okay, so how does a special dinner equate to turning our house into a sauna?"

"Oh, that's simple. We're having monkfish _a la Kiyohime_."

Natsuki found herself blinking again.

"Monk...fish?"

"Yes, it is a very ugly but quite tasty fish."

"And Kiyohime is cooking it?"

Shizuru nodded.

"Yes. She prepares the fish with dill and mayonnaise for Natsuki's tastes, then places it under a bronze dish, which she superheats with her steam breath in order to cook the fish."

"I guess that explains the sauna."

Then she grinned.

"Bronze dish, huh? I'm surprised that she didn't use an actual bell."

"Well, she wanted to for historical authenticity, but there weren't any available in the right price range. You'd be surprised what a properly blessed Buddhist temple bell goes for, even in kitchen size."

"The price probably went up when you told them what you wanted it for. Too bad, really. I'd even watch one of those TV cooking shows to see Kiyohime roast a monk under a bell."

~X X X~

_A/N: I don't know what it is, but the idea of Kiyohime-the-chef seems unbearably cute to me. Maybe it's the mental image of her wearing chef's hats while she cooks. Obviously, if you know the original legend of Kiyohime, her monkfish recipe makes more sense._


	55. Even Six Heads Didn't See This Coming

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

It was a cold morning in early spring. The kind of morning where, despite the promise of sun later in the day, a leaden gray sky suggested "April showers" were going to be cold, wet, and not at all inclined to produce rainbows. The kind of day where one wanted to bundle into one's winter coat and the flowers were glad they were still snuggled under the ground instead of growing up into the cold air, air which was chill enough to cause a puff of steam to rise from the mouth at every exhalation.

Or in Kiyohime's case, six puffs of steam.

Despite her reptilian appearance, the purple hydra did not dislike cold weather. She found snow fun to burrow in, and enjoyed the celebration of Christmas, and she was sure that with a little more work at it she could get better at throwing snowballs so that _next year, darn it_ she'd be able to beat Duran in a snow fight. So she did not mind the unseasonal chill in the air.

The young woman taking her for a morning slither around the block, however...

"Argh, stupid leash! I can only keep one hand in my pocket while holding it while the other one freezes!"

Kiyohime's fourth head looked up at Natsuki Kuga and gave an inquiring hiss. It always was the daredevil of the six.

"No, I am not letting you off the leash. Fuuka only lets pets run free in the park or on private property."

_Several_ heads gave her a dubious look at that one. If hydras had eyebrows, Natsuki had a feeling quite a number of them would be raised at her just then.

"What? Just because I don't give a hoot about the stupid laws doesn't mean that I don't follow the ones that make sense. Besides, what if something bad happened? Shizuru would cry and she'd kill me, hopefully in reverse order so I don't have to watch her be sad."

The heads looked at each other and, coming to a consensus, nodded. The second head even gave her a somewhat suggestive look that indicated it had not missed that Natsuki had put seeing her girlfriend in despair as the worse fate than stabby death.

"Don't you start. Teasing is absolutely not allowed when I can't feel my toes."

The hiss was curious this time.

"No, not literally. I'm just crabby."

Kiyohime had not questioned why Natsuki was walking her if it annoyed the biker so much to be out in the cold. The hydra had, after all, been there in the room when Shizuru Fujino had looked up at Natsuki with wide red eyes.

"Would you mind taking Kiyohime for a walk this morning, Natsuki? I'm running really late today, and I have to finish printing and collating a paper to turn in for my first class."

"Can't she just go out in the back yard?" Natsuki had proposed what she'd thought was a reasonable compromise.

"It's not the same. She likes to get out and stretch her scales on these warm spring days."

"There is nothing warm about this day."

Shizuru's pout would have melted the heart of a statue.

"Nice try. I've known you too long."

The pout had vanished then.

"_Ikezu_. But I would really appreciate it."

It was almost an axiom of relationships that as one's resistance to trickery grows, one's ability to turn down an honest request decreases to jack squat. Ergo, Kiyohime did not have to ask why Natsuki was willing to shiver in the cold to give the hydra a walk that Kiyohime had not even begged Shizuru to give her.

"There ought to be a rule," Natsuki decided. "Once the cherry blossoms fly, Nature is not allowed to backslide and let winter poke its nose back in again. That's just how it should be. Who do I need to talk to about this?"

Kiyohime did not interject a remark, knowing Natsuki's dislike for the cold. While Natsuki's name was actually spelled with hiragana, not the kanji for "summer princess," it might as well have been, she was such a warm-weather girl.

"Still, though, we're almost home, and at least there wasn't any snow." Natsuki glanced at her watch and brightened. "And there'll be coffee by now, so that I can warm up when we get there!"

They turned up the walk leading to the house Natsuki and Shizuru shared, went up the front steps (not always easy without legs; Kiyohime often thought a hydra ramp would have been a nice addition) and into the house.

"_Surprise!_"

The living room was packed. All eleven of the other HiME were there: Mai, Mikoto, Nao, Yukino, Midori, Yukariko, Akira, Shiho, Akane, Headmistress Fumi, even Alyssa, together with assorted friends, love interests, and androids. Even the CHILDs were there, from Artemis doing its best imitation of a strobe light to St. Vlas riding Gakuten-O so that it could chase Hari around the room to what looked like...

All fourteen of Kiyohime's eyes blinked in surprise. Was Miroku _dancing_ with Diana? The floating, legless oni and the plant's tendrils did seem to be moving in time with the music. At least to the extent one _could_ dance to Beethoven.

The real surprise was the banner, though, held aloft by Yatagarasu and Kagutsuchi, the dragon-phoenix and the crow doing their best hummingbird imitations so that it would stay more or less in one place. Written in giant purple letters was the message, "Happy Birthday Kiyohime."

As a chorus of "Happy Birthday" broke out, led by Mai (who'd take any excuse to sing in public), the tea cart rolled out of the kitchen, pushed by Duran, who held the handle in his mouth. Rather than tea, it held six plates, each with their own slice of birthday cake topped by three lit candles.

"You have to have hats!" Mikoto said, and immediately began to slip conical, glittering paper party hats on whichever head she could reach. It wouldn't have been hard even for someone without Mikoto's abnormal agility to have done, given how utterly dumbfounded the hydra was.

Kiyohime's sixth head looked up at Natsuki and gave her a curious hiss.

"Of course I was in on it," Natsuki grinned. "We figured you'd never suspect anything if I was the one who took you out since we all know how much I love the cold. We figured you'd be too busy snickering at Shizuru's teasing to get suspicious."

It offered another hiss, still obviously in shock.

"What? You don't think I've lived with Shizuru all this time without learning how to be sneaky when I want to be, do you?"

~X X X~

_A/N: As my long-time readers have likely already realized, this story is a birthday gift for my very own Natsuki, my wife Tarma Hartley! Happy birthday, sweetie! I'm sorry I can't get you an actual pet hydra again this year. Natsuki's already had two birthday fics in these chibi-CHILD stories, so I thought it was time that someone else got that chance. I have no idea if Kiyohime's "birthday" (which is here treated as her day of first summoning by Shizuru) actually is in the spring, but hey, why not? The "fourteen eyes" line does include the two on the main body (she was _really_ surprised, to get them involved, too!)._

_(Oh, and why Beethoven at a party, you might ask? It seems that Kiyo-chan is a fan of classical music!)_


	56. Mad Science Is Not a Toy

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Tokiha and Minagi family pets)_

"Dr. Muramasa!" the hunchbacked assistant cried. "The villagers are at the gates!"

"Let them come!" cackled the scar-faced man in the double-breasted lab coat. "They will be too late! When I throw these levers, the circuit will be connected! The power of the storm will be channeled through these coils and infused into the body of my creation! They wanted me to build the ultimate soldier, and so I have! The bodies of our glorious dead shall rise to fight for our Emperor once more!"

"I don't know," Reito Kanzaki said even as, on-screen, the mad scientist threw the switches. "While I can see the obvious connection as it applies to human irresponsibility and our lack of foresight in exploiting scientific advancement for our immediate ends without considering the long-term consequences, I just don't think that an anti-militarism message has a place in a Frankenstein movie."

"Dude, just watch the film and save the lit class for when you're actually in one," Yuuichi Tate shot back before munching on a handful of popcorn. "It's just getting to the good part," he said through butter and salt.

Sitting between her two boyfriends, Mai Tokiha tried to understand just how she'd come to think having them both over to watch a film had ever seemed like a good idea. They'd managed to keep the rutting-stag behavior to a minimum, but that didn't help the fact that they were such different people that they could talk to each other about the same thing and end up having two separate conversations.

_You know, if you shoved them into one body, they'd make the perfect guy._ Reito's intelligence, Yuuichi's steadfastness, Reito's gorgeous looks, Yuuichi's rugged pleasure in physicality, Reito's charm, Yuuichi's lack of artifice...Mai sighed happily. Then she realized that such a combination might not be limited to their _good_ points, and she might end up with Reito's sneakiness and ego mingled with Yuuichi's thick-headed insensitivity, and decided one of the lessons to be learned from the movie was that she had to learn to take people as they were and not think she could focus in on the positive bits while changing the rest as it suited her.

Probably she ought to learn that lesson if she ever wanted to get down to one boyfriend, rather than staying indecisive because she wanted _all_ the good points of _all _of them.

Kagutsuchi, curled up in her lap, made little cooing noises in his sleep. His voice added to Reito and Tate's made her realize that one member of the little menage _hadn't_ said something in a while.

"BWA HA HA HA HA!" The insane cackling echoed through the room. "Now, the power of science shall deliver to me the secret of all my desires!"

On the screen, the monster was lurching through the halls of the laboratory while the mob of peasants screamed in terror and alternately ran for their lives or fought futilely with their crude weapons. No one saw it, because they were all looking towards the kitchen, where the laughter had come from. This was followed by the hum of the microwave.

"Do you think we should check on her?" Reito suggested, possibly out of genuine concern and possibly in the belief that since Mikoto was _his_ sister, anything she did would cost _him_ boyfriend points. Which belief was possibly true, at that.

Any response to that suggestion was made moot by the loud crackling sound, followed by the explosion. A legless oni went flying out of the kitchen to smack into the far wall, followed rapidly by an undersized girl with black braids and a cloud of thick smoke.

All three of the movie-watchers vaulted to their feet, Kagutsuchi spilling onto the floor with a yelp (though his displeasure was moderated by the fact that Tate had dumped the popcorn bowl out of his lap the same way Mai had spilled Kagutsuchi, and therefore the contents were fair game for any dragon-phoenix hybrids suffering from post-nap hunger). The boys rushed to the kitchen, waving their arms to clear the smoke, to make sure that any fire could be quickly put out. Mai crouched by Mikoto, hoping she was all right. The feline girl's eyes were glassy and unfocused, but other than smoke smudges she had no visible injuries.

_Typical; she always lands on her feet even when being knocked flat on her butt._

"Mai..." Mikoto mumbled through slack lips. "Science is bad..."

Mai could hear the hissing spray of the fire extinguisher from the kitchen, idly wondering if it was Yuuichi's quicker reflexes in a crisis or Reito's faster brain that had gotten to the device first. Knowing them, they'd both want to score "See, I put out the fire!" points in the typical male misapprehension that there was such a thing.

"Mikoto, when you let the tinfoil touch the side of the microwave for the third time in a year, I'm not convinced that the science is the real problem."

~X X X~

_A/N: Of course, zapping the microwave with tinfoil is not going to cause an explosion (though it might well fry the magnetron and ruin the microwave). Mikoto no doubt has special talents!_


	57. That Didn't Go as Advertised

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

Chinese take-out containers littered the table in the Kuga-Fujino living room. The humans had finished eating and were sharing a last cup of tea, while the animals were addressing themselves to their leftovers.

Kiyohime had decided to use this occasion to master a new skill. Rather than just devour the six dumplings in front of her, her first and second heads each had a chopstick in its mouth and were attempting to pick up a dumpling together. After all, a hydra never knew when she might be invited out to dinner, and in polite society one did not eat by sticking one's mouth into the food.

The fifth head used the distraction to snake out and grab one of the dumplings. Hunger was more important than manners, it had apparently decided.

Duran, on the other hand, knew that no one ever invited the family dog to dinner and if they did would just put his food on the floor anyway. His muzzle was buried in the shrimp fried rice, happily wolfing away. Natsuki chuckled at his practicality, but her enjoyment of the pets' eating habits was cut short by the prickling of her instincts, that warning of trouble which had saved her neck many a time in the past. She glanced to her left to see that her lover was giving her a very odd look over the rim of her teacup.

"Shizuru?"

"Yes, Natsuki?"

"...That is a really weird look on your face."

"_Ara,_ is it?"

Natsuki's gaze narrowed.

"Okay, out with it. What's going on inside that sneaky head of yours?"

Shizuru set the teacup down.

"Well, I was just thinking of how much I would like to clear off the table with a sweep of my arm, then push Natsuki down on it. I would grab the neck of your T-shirt and tear it down the front. Then I would pour the last of my tea over you, and lick it off of your skin, with sweet, slow sweeps of my tongue, even as I unbuttoned your jeans and pushed them down over your hips. After that, I would—"

"Yeahhh, okay, I think I get the general idea." Natsuki hopped to her feet. "Duran, how'd you like to go down to the park for a run, maybe exercise off some of this dinner?"

Duran looked up and woofed happily. He was fine with just being let out into the fenced back yard, but walks with Natsuki were much more fun. There might even be squirrels to bark at!

"Great; it's settled. And maybe by the time we get back, _someone_ will be feeling a little less completely nuts."

Wagging, Duran got to his feet. He wasn't actually sure how what Shizuru said was all that different than what Shizuru ordinarily got up to, but he doubted it was the dog's job to ask those questions. And besides, walk!

After the front door had clicked shut behind the departing walkers, Shizuru picked up a slip of paper from the trash on the table.

"'Honesty will be well rewarded,'" she read aloud. "Kiyohime, do you think I should call the restaurant and complain? I don't think it's right for them to be putting lies into their cookies."

~X X X~

_A/N: Yep. We get take-out, and Shizuru and Natsuki get another fortune-cookie short! I'm beginning to get the idea that these omake will be able to continue so long as the Chinese restaurants in town stay open..._


	58. He'd Probably Have Fly Breath, Too

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Okuzaki family pet)_

"I'm perfectly fine. Honestly, Akira, you didn't need to come check on me," Takumi Tokiha told his former roommate and current girlfriend, Akira Okuzaki.

"Miss Sagisawa told me that you had to leave phys. ed. early today and go to her office. That doesn't sound like 'perfectly fine' to me."

"Geez, you're as bad as Mai sometimes." He cupped his hands behind his head as he leaned back on the bed. "I just got a little winded, that's all, because I'm still out of shape since the operation. And this is lots better than I used to be. In the old days I couldn't take part at all."

She sat down on the corner of the bed by his feet without the slightest trace of self-consciousness about being in a boy's room, or on a boy's bed, after dark. Part of Takumi kind of wished she would be a little more aware of those kinds of implications. After all, when he'd been sickly most of his life, it was easy to confuse physical weakness with a lack of masculinity. So it did make him wonder, just a little, if the reason she was so at ease with him was because she didn't give the slightest thought about him being a potential threat to her virtue.

On the other hand, part of what he liked about Akira was the easy camaraderie they shared, friendship as well as romance. He'd hate to lose that to be replaced by the kind of girlish fluttering he saw in manga and on TV, and increasingly around him as his friends from class started finding relationships of their own. Especially just to satisfy his own stupid insecurities.

"And you want to be able to keep taking part in the future, remember, so don't go pushing your limits too hard. You know what the doctor said; you've got to steadily build up your cardiovascular fitness without slacking off _and_ without going too hard, too fast."

She was, in a word, relentless.

"Look, it's not that I don't get it," she went on. "You've spent your whole life having to constantly watch your health, take your meds, sit around while everyone else gets to do things. And you're sick and tired of feeling like a burden. I know what it's like to be weighed down by the pressures and expectations of family, even if for me it was 'do a good job as a HiME' instead of 'take care of yourself and get well.' So you want to get healthy as fast as possible both for your own sake and for everyone else's. But you've got to take it the right way or you're just going to overdo it and end up on your butt in bed."

Akira reached out and gave him a forehead flick.

"You _are_ getting more like Mai every day."

"Isn't that a good thing, siscon-boy?" she teased.

He shot her a look, then to get some of his own back he dropped his gaze to her chest.

"At least in some ways you are."

Akira flushed beet-red.

_Gotcha._

"Takumi!"

He grinned at her.

"Just remember that you're not the only one who can be sneaky."

"Oh, is that so?"

She leaned forward towards him.

"And I suppose you'd prefer it if I was built like some big-boobed AV star?"

Forget "towards"; she was now leaning _over_ him, one hand on either side of his chest. And while he'd been lamenting her apparent lack of notice of his masculinity, Takumi was certainly not having any problem noticing that a girl was less than a foot away from him!

"No, that's not what I meant!" he babbled, then sighed as she shot a grin back at him. "Which you already knew."

"Of course. But if you're going to make me squirm, then turnabout is fair play, right?"

He noted that, although she was smiling, her body hadn't moved. In fact, her lips were actually drawing closer to his.

Then the lights went out.

"Huh? What's going on?"

The presence disappeared from the bed. Takumi would never have realized that Akira had gone were it not for that sudden loss of that aura, for lack of a better word. There had been no apparent shifting of weight to feel, no whisper of sound to hear.

"I think it's just a power failure. The clock radio is out, too."

From the window, there was a rustle as the curtain was drawn back.

"Yeah, that's it; all the lights are off outside as well."

"I hope it doesn't last too long. I did need to get some homework done tonight." The fact that he was alone with his girlfriend in a pitch-dark room hadn't really impacted his mind; the sudden blackout had been a mood-killer and quite frankly neither one of them was actually ready for fumblings in darkened rooms. Maybe in a few years, but not now.

"Oh, I can help with that. Gennai!"

Takumi heard a soft croak in response. He hadn't even known the frog was in the room (were there such things as ninja stealth skills for amphibians?), but sure enough two powerful beams of light like a pair of flashlights stabbed out of the dark.

"Thanks! But, you know, I understand that it's a set-up for the shadow trick and all," he mused, "but the more I think about it, spotlights don't really seem very ninja-like."

Gennai let out a mildly offended ribbit.

"I guess I shouldn't look a gift frog in the mouth, though."

"Especially not given his tongue."

~X X X~

_A/N: Admittedly, more TakuAki romance going on in this one than CHILD humor, but hey, I don't take the secondary couples out for a spin anywhere near as often as I probably ought to._


	59. Boys Should Clean Things Up

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Munakata family pet)_

It was the considered opinion of Mai Tokiha that Yuuichi Tate was a damn fine kisser.

He wasn't much for artistry, true enough. He'd never really mastered the skill of using kisses to steadily build a girl's enjoyment, to tease and excite, to draw her on, then deny, then invite again, to turn each press of lips into an act of seduction. Indeed, she doubted he was even aware that there was such a skill. But she didn't need that from him. Her other boyfriend was more than good enough at that kind of kissing.

What Tate could do was put his arms around her, crush his lips against hers, and give her that shattering, all-consuming kind of kiss that screamed that the woman he held commanded all of his attention, all of his passion, that he was utterly lost in her charms. It was a heady feeling, one Mai thrilled to all the way down to her toes.

Loud banging on Tate's room door cut off the toe-curling before it could get too serious.

"_Oniichan_!"

Mai groaned. Tate rolled his eyes. They knew that sound.

"I suppose we should see what she wants?" Tate suggested.

Mai was a nice young woman, a genuinely kind and good person. She did not advocate leaving Shiho Munakata outside to bang on the door to her heart's content while they got back to the kissing, nor opening the door but only long enough to pitch Shiho off the balcony into the hedge below.

That's not to say that she didn't think about it. She was only human, after all.

"We probably should," she said, releasing her embrace so Tate could get up to answer.

Shiho bounced through the door happily, a short junior high student with a seafood theme going on with her head: her hair was salmon-pink and styled to, for some reason, resemble a four-tentacled octopus.

"_Oniichan_, it's so good to see you—"

"Hi, Shiho."

"Mai." She said it flatly, dully. The kind of voice one uses when one comes home and learns that one's dog was not as housebroken as one thought, but the shock has yet to wear off enough to let the emotion through.

Shiho's crow, Yatagarasu, flew through the door and perched on the back of a chair, clenching a rung in his single claw. Tate disentangled himself from Shiho's hello hug and closed the door.

"You didn't mention she would be here," Shiho said.

"Why would I? It's not like I invited you over." One could not say that Tate hadn't learned his lesson about being honest about his feelings during the HiME Festival.

"But _oniichan_, what did you think I meant when I said I was going to stop off at the grocery store?" She held up the two plastic shopping bags in her right hand.

"I thought you were going to make dinner for your grandpa tonight."

"_I asked you what sounded good!_"

Somewhere, Mai decided, Reito Kanzaki was smirking.

"I just thought we were chatting!" Tate protested. "I never imagined you were going to come over and make dinner for me!"

Yatagarasu took off, fluttered down to pick up a crumpled piece of paper that had been errantly tossed at the wastebasket, and dropped it in before returning to his perch.

"I mean, I'm sorry that I didn't get it, but you need to be more direct and just come out and say stuff like that, Shiho," Tate continued. Images of smirk aside, Mai found herself unable to be mad at Tate. She thought it was kind of sweet that he didn't even acknowledge that romantic gestures from other women were even possible. Those were the kind of thoughts she was glad to have never cross his mind.

Understandably, Shiho was a little less forgiving.

"You have to pay more attention, too! Now, I've gone to all this trouble, only to walk in on a necking session between you and this _femme fatale_!"

"You didn't walk in on anything, Shiho; I properly opened the door for you. And Mai's not a _femme fatale_, either."

"Well, what would you call a woman who keeps two boys on her string, dancing to her tune? I mean, you were here kissing her even though you know that tomorrow night she'll probably be off doing the same thing with Reito Kanzaki."

Yatagarasu flew over to the coffee table and picked up an empty bag of squid chips Tate had finished with while watching TV, and dispatched it to the garbage.

"Really, Shiho, you're being ridiculous."

"It's true, though, _oniichan_!"

Mai wondered about that. She'd never thought of herself as some kind of skilled seductress like Shizuru or Nao, or some kind of eye-catching, gorgeous beauty like Natsuki, but she had managed to land two pretty awesome guys who were willing to court her until she decided between them.

In a weird way, she actually thought it sounded kind of neat.

_Bad Mai_, she scolded herself.

"Yeah, well, true or not, I had a date with Mai tonight."

"But it's not fair to Shiho, either," Mai interjected. "She went out and bought groceries expecting to have dinner tonight, because you didn't catch on to what she was saying." Sweet or not, terminal obliviousness had its price.

Tate sighed.

"Fine, I'll pay for the food."

"Uh-uh," Mai said, shaking her finger. "What you'll do is go call Mikoto and invite her over, and maybe Aoi and Chie and Takumi and Akira and Akane and Kazuya and some other people. Shiho and I will roll up our sleeves, get to cooking, and we'll make a party of it!"

"Um, Mai, I didn't bring enough for a bunch of people."

"Don't worry; we'll just clean out Yuuichi's fridge."

Tate's eyebrows rose.

"Wait, how did I agree to this?"

"You did make a dinner date with two girls at once," Mai pointed out in her very best _do you think Reito would have done that?_ voice.

"...What's Mikoto's cell number again?"

_Maybe there's something to this _femme fatale_ stuff after all._

Yatagarasu swooped down, plucked an empty soda can from the kitchen cabinet, and dropped it into the recycling bag. Tate paused in the middle of dialing.

"Why does he keep doing that?"

"It's instinctive," Shiho said. "As a crow, he's part of nature's cleanup crew."

"Can he handle a broom? 'Cause I've seen what happens when you HiME throw parties."

~X X X~

_A/N: I just finished playing _Ace Attorney Investigations_ this past Saturday, so naturally I was inspired to write a story featuring Yatagarasu. Long-term readers of these omake will realize at once that this story must take place before Chapter 21, since Shiho still has her _HiME_ hairdo here..._


	60. She Has Good Taste in Summer Fun

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Kuga-Fujino family pets)_

_A/N: It was four years ago today that I posted the first chapter of Duran & Kiyohime's Omake Theater, so it seemed appropriate to put up a new omake today! Hm, if I can keep up with this average pace of fifteen a year, within another three years I should get to the 100__th__ chapter. That would be kind of neat! You should all give yourselves a pat on the back, because I certainly wouldn't be still doing these if it wasn't for you, the appreciative readers._

~X X X~

Shizuru Fujino was a girl for all seasons. This was in sharp contrast to her girlfriend Natsuki Kuga, who generally thought of winter as a plague foisted on temperate climates by a cruelly malicious deity, quite possibly for the sole purpose of making her life miserable. To Shizuru, there was something to enjoy about all of the seasons, and thus she could savor equally the cherry blossoms of spring, the crimson maples of fall, and the glistening white blanket of a snowy winter mountain.

(She was still working on how she'd ended up racing Haruka Suzushiro on snowboards down such a mountain this past winter, but every season also had its little mysteries.)

But it was summer that had come to be Shizuru's favorite season, for the simple reason that it was _Natsuki's_ favorite season. It was always much more fun to enjoy the pleasures of any time or place alongside the girl she loved, after all. And while Shizuru was willing to exert herself when necessary to get the outcome that she wanted, she was a fundamentally lazy person who would rather do as little as she had to. In summer, she did not have to spend time putting Natsuki into a good mood but could instead move directly on to enjoying the good mood that was already there.

Thus, Shizuru was feeling happy and generally at peace with the world that hot summer afternoon. She was laying out on her stomach on a beach chair set to full recline, savoring the warm rays of the sun on her bare back, while Natsuki was in the kitchen, fetching glasses of iced green tea to bring out for the two of them while they relaxed.

The scrape of the screen door opening and closing and the clink of ice in the glasses told her that Natsuki had returned, and a lazy smile curved her lips at the thought.

"Do you want this now?"

"Mmn, if you would just put it on the table, Natsuki?"

"Heh, don't want to get up, huh? Well, you're not the only one; your hydra looks like she's melting over there."

Shizuru found the energy to roll her head to her right, where in fact Kiyohime was doing her level best to imitate a puddle, her heads draped over an ornamental rock, soaking up the heat from both above and below. She was just starting to chuckle softly when she felt something cold and wet press against her back.

"Ah! Natsuki, you tease!" It felt like she'd gone and brushed the tea glass, or an ice cube, against Shizuru's bare skin just below her left shoulder blade.

"Oi? I didn't—"

"_Ikezu_," Shizuru pouted.

The sensation immediately changed as Natsuki apparently decided to play nice. A warm, wet caress slid up her skin where the cold had just been. It felt much better than the chilly shock, and it continued, the stroking caresses on her bare back.

"Ah, _ookini_, Natsuki, I did think that I might need some more suntan lotion. But what made you think of it? Or was it just an excuse to get your hands on me, hmm?" she purred.

"Actually, Shizuru, I think you've got on enough of that lotion."

It was not so much the amused tone that caught Shizuru's attention as it was the fact that the voice was coming from several feet away.

This was when it began to sink in that something was not as it should be. She raised her head, half-turned, and looked back over her left shoulder.

Duran paused in licking her back to instead give her a big sweep of his tongue right across the face. She sighed and patted him on his (cold and wet, natch) nose.

"_Ara_, I'm guessing that you enjoy the flavor of coconut oil and shea butter?"

He gave her an eager doggy grin. Natsuki, meanwhile, had dissolved into a bad case of the giggles.

"Maybe you should switch to a less tasty brand of suntan lotion!" she laughed.

Shizuru shook her head.

"But that would be very foolish of me." She gave her girlfriend a slow, sultry smile and had the satisfaction of watching Natsuki's knees quiver. "After all, if I switch to something that makes my skin taste bad, then Natsuki will not want to nibble on me, and we absolutely cannot have that!"


	61. You Just Don't See That Every Day

**Duran-kun and Kiyo-chan's Omake Theater**

_(featuring the Higurashi family pet)_

"Get 'cher hands up! Get 'em up!"

The convenience store clerk shivered in fear as he obeyed. There weren't that many street thugs in Japan waving guns around, and it was entirely possible the blued-steel automatic being shoved in his face was the first one the middle-aged man had seen in real life. Even the thug's partner, otherwise an identical model with buzzcut hair, bandanna over his mouth, sunglasses, and leather jacket, only had an aluminum baseball bat to poke at an elderly lady waiting in line.

"Alla you!" Batboy roared. "Gimme yer money, now!"

"Open the register, old man!" his gun-toting friend barked at the clerk, perhaps forgetting that he'd just told the man to raise his hands. Trembling, the clerk fumbled with the register.

"Hey! You kids!" The thug waved his bat towards the two high-school students that had just emerged from behind the ice-cream cooler when the robbery began. "Lemme see your wallets!" His eyes then fell on the female half of the pair. "Hey, yer quite the cutie! Just my type!"

He reached out to cup her face with his free hand, but she jerked her head back with a look of revulsion.

"Ugh!"

"Now, that ain't nice, girlie!" he sneered, grabbing her by the upper arm and pulling her towards him. The boy stepped forward at once.

"Leave her alone!"

"Back off, 'less you wanna get hurt!" the thug sneered.

"I said to keep your hands to yourself." The boy shoved the punk back a step.

"Hey!" the thief with the gun barked, swinging the pistol's barrel over towards the kids. "You wanna die, hero? You want her to see you bleed?"

The boy stopped, unclenching his fists and raising his hands.

"Yeah, hero boy. Know yer role," Batboy laughed, then rammed the end of the bat like a lance into the boy's gut, making him double up, retching.

"Kazu-kun!" squeaked the girl.

"You don't want him to get hurt any more, you play nice with me, get it?" the thief sneered in her face. He expected her to cower and whimper in fear, something he got off on, but he was doomed to disappointment. Unlike in the clerk's past experience, a petty thug with a baseball bat wasn't the scariest thing Akane Higurashi had seen. After assorted Orphans, MIBs, a killer android, Midori Sugiura drunk and bearing cosplay costumes, the odd evil deity, and Kazuya's mother, he didn't even make her top ten.

"Don't you lay a hand on him!" she snapped back, glaring up at him.

"What, have you kids got a death wish or something?" the pistol-packing thief asked in disbelief.

Akane shook her head sharply, then cried out, "Hari!"

Unlike in the days when she'd been a HiME, a giant metal panther as tall at the shoulder as she was did not materialize out of thin air in front of her. But a hundred-pound metal panther springing over the cooler and crashing into the gunman, carrying him down to the floor, knocking the gun from his hand, and closing his mouth gently on the back of the thug's neck in a persuasive suggestion that the thief should stay very still was quite spectacular enough for the occasion.

Batboy stood gaping in shock. Well, probably gaping; because of the bandanna no one could be quite sure, but it looked like a moment for a gape. Certainly, slack-jawed gaping was the kind of expression one commonly found on people who were so stunned by circumstances that a high-school girl could reach out and pluck a baseball bat right out of their hand.

Akane wasn't like some of her fellow HiME. Unlike Mikoto, Natsuki, or Akira, she hadn't trained in the martial arts or to fight with weapons other than her Element. The bat, however, was similar enough to her oversized tonfas that she was able to snap a backhanded blow across the thief's chest, then spin it around for a strike behind the knees that whipped him up off his feet. He crashed onto his back on the linoleum floor, and she pinned him there with the bat pressed against the base of his throat.

"Akane, that was so cool!" Kazuya cheered her wholeheartedly, being the kind of guy who thoroughly enjoyed displays of gratuitous awesome from his girlfriend (and her cat). This time, though, he was not alone in his praise.

"Indeed, young lady, I've never seen anything as amazing in all my life," the clerk gushed.

"Yes, yes," agreed the elderly woman, nodding vigorously. "Why, I can't imagine how you ever got that cat to come when you called him."


End file.
